A NOVELIST’S WORK

Hokitika Guardian, 10 July 1931, Page 6

A NOVELIST’S WORK

CREATING CiiARACTERS

MR GALSWORTHY EXPLAINS.

LONDON, May 29

Delivering the Komanes Lecuue in the lheatue at Uxfo.d, laso week, Mr John Galsworthy re\eaitii lion- the characters in his novels come into being. ‘■l smlt into my morning chair,” he said, “a blotter on my knee, the last words or deed of some character in ink before my eyes, a pen in my hand, a pip 4. in my month, and nothing in my head. I sit. intend ; I don’t expect; I don’t even hope. I read over the last pages. “Gradually my mind seems to leave the chair, and'be where my character is acting or speaking, leg raised, waiting to come down, lips open ready to say something. Suddenly, my pen jots down a movement or remark, another, another, and goes on doing this, haltingly, perhaps, for an hour or two. “When the result is read through it surprises one by seeming to come out of what went, before, and by ministering to some sort of possible future. Those pages, adding tissue to character have been supplied from the store-cup-board of the subconscious, in response to the appeal of one’s conscious directive sense, and in service to the saving grace of one’s theme, using that word in its widest sense.” CHAEACTEILS THAT LIVE.

Arguing that few novels outlive their own generation, >Mr Galsworthy stated that the few novels of old time"..to which we still turn with gusto are almost always those in which a character or characters have outlived their period. How far would Thackeray be known tc-day, but lor Becky' Sharp, Major Pendennis, Colonel New-come, Esmond Beatrice, or Barry Lyndon Y With Dickens, he said, we associate practically nothing now but a galleyful of strangely living creatures; George Eliot retains precarious foothold through her children, Silas Marner, Adam Bede, and Hetty; and it is the character creations of Jane Austin* that still keeps her memory fresh. When his task" is finished it is always comforting to a novelist, Mr Galsworthy said, to know that by the creation of character he contributes to the organic growth of human ethics. “If, indeed, a novelist has any' use in the world, apart from affording entertainment, it is through the revealing power of his created characters.”

If one had to give the palm to a single factors in the creation of character it would, in Mr Galsworthy’s opinion, go to sly, dry humour, the sort of humour which produced the Don and fvireho, Fal,staff, MMor Pendenn ,- s, Reeky Sharp, Sam Weller and Micawber.

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