THE BOOKMAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 465, 21 September 1928, Page 14

THE BOOKMAN

Reviews Gc Notes

THE REAL ROSE MACAULAY

(Written for THE SUN)

"DEFORE attempting to assess the value of any work of fiction the literary critic is faced with the necessity of defining the object and the ideal that fiction is to achieve. In the writing and appreciation of the novel there are two distinct schools of thought. There is what we might call the “Zola" school, which holds that the art of fiction is to represent life, and, on the other hand, the “Daudet” school, which asserts that its first object is to entertain. Miss Rose Macaulay is a writer who has fallen between two stools —pardon, schools. Probably no present-day novelist is so much admired and so thoroughly misunderstood. As each of her novels has appeared it has been hailed as a masterpiece of sparkling satire and sly-doggery. The critics have pointed out, some angrily, some delightedly, how entertainingly Miss Macaulay pillories the follies and weaknesses of humanity. Miss Macaulay’s sarcasm and irony and trenchant ridicule have become a literary legend. “How caustic she is,” they cry. “How cynical!” I cannot see it. I absolutely cannot see it.

What Margaret Macpherson thinks of Rose Macaulay does not, of course, matter to anyone. But what Rose

Macaulay thinks of her strange reputation is interesting. She gives us an inkling of this in her preface to “Mystery at Geneva.” She observes that readers and critics have shown a tendency to find satire where none was intended and she has therefore been at pains to state that “this book is simply a straightforward mystery story devoid of irony, moral, or meaning, and is in no sense a study of, still less a skit on, actual conditions at Geneva.” Poor Miss Macaulay! She might as well have saved her ink! The book was hailed as a masterpiece of ironical wit at the expense of the League of Nations. What has happened is simply this. Rose Macaulay has been misclassified from the beginning. She has been assigned to the ‘“entertainment” school of novelists. She belongs, in fact, to the realists. She is a realist with a rapier instead of a bludgeon. She has visited Geneva in session. She knows Geneva. With her cool delicacy and clarity of mind she has put the real Geneva on to paper, with perfect craftsmanship in the use of local colour. Dispassionate truth about anything is so rare that it seems grotesque. Dispassionate truth presented with a delicate and subtle sense of humour has won for Miss Macaulay her reputation as a brilliant satirical novelist. Literary criticism has become so addled and besotted with the pitiful illusions of the luscious senti mentalists of the John Oxenham-A. S. M. Hutchinson type (degenerates of the Daudet school of fiction) and the still more pitiful illusions of the heavy-handed realists, such as Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis (representing the Zola school), that the finely-balanced, clearly-visualised characterisations of Rose Macaulay always Appear on the literary horizon as a shattering surprise, and truth well told is mistaken for irony and sarcasm.

The pity of it is that the real and actual excellence of this gifted woman’s work has been underestimated, and the world has been lauding an imaginary satirist at the expense of a very great artist. Let the reader start again upon Mis? Macauf, nove * s - Let him read “Potterism” not as a satire upon the Northcliffe Press, “Orphan Island” not as a diatribe again t poor old Queen Victoria,” “Mystery at Geneva” held innocent of murderous intent upon the League of Nations. . Let him read them as the simple, straightforward stories Miss Macaulay says they are intended to be, and mp.ke an experiment for hiipself in literary criticism and appreciation. Here, for instance, js a little exIsland” m scene ' paintir *S on "Orphan “The days passed slowly by each so new, so delightful, so manycoloured and so strange. Like some lovely fruit that puts forth, ripens and tumbles, overmellow, to the ground between dawn and nightfall, so each Lnd Lm“ y T troni the sea ’ small and gold and exquisite, ripened to a , and f rasrant moon, and slid rosSir , the sea again, leaving the island afloat beneath the myriad eyes of a vast and purple night ” If we 80 intent upon finding satire in Orphan Island,” we might hanDen to notice that it is probably the best island-novel of this century, full c ,f fif and ?olour and poetry, and wruers er is n school writers is well and truly beaten at its own charming game snh/?r exam ‘ r ;e tor a' moment her ?“ btl ® and felicitous character-paint-aad compare it with the slap dash “ e l"° d V Sed by other hovelists. It is easy to portray character by using personal traits and mannerisms of the fhe S Hmp ort ' Tb Ch s' 8 the -tammeV.'SS he Jimp. The hiss of the villain.

the rippling girlish laugh of the heroine, the grin-and-whistle of her little brother, this is the sort of thing that passes for characterisation in 90 per cent, of modern novels. Eve* where the characterisation is admittedly good, as for instance in “Elmer Gantry,” the drawing seems heavy and clumsy when we compare it w'ith the shrewd sufliciency and artistic economy of Rose Macaulay’s creations. Hers is the art of the etcher, every stroke fine and delicate and essential. Here, as an example, is an exquisite miniature presentment of three persons, taken at random from “Dangerous Ages” (note that there is absolutely np use of external mannerism or appearance, but merely perfect psychological portraiture.) The characters are Ann, Rosalind and Mrs. Hilary (Ann’s mother and Rosalind’s mother-in-law): "If Rosalind thought it would amuse her to do anything you could not pre,vent her. She and Mrs. Hilary disliked one another a good deal, though Rosalind would say to the others, ‘Your darling mother! She’s priceless and I adore her!’ She would say that when she had caught out Mrs. Hilary in a mistake. She would draw her on To say she had read a book she hadn’t read (it was a point of honour with Mrsf. Hilary never to admit ignorance of any book mentioned by others), and then she would say, ‘I do love you, mother! It’s not out yet; I’ve only seen Gilbert’s review copy,’ and Mrs. Hilary would say, ‘ln that case I suppose I am thinking of another book,’ and Rosalind would say: . . Your darling mother! I fieri’ and Nan, contemptuous of her* mother for thinking such trivial pretence worth while, and with Rosalind for thinking malicious exposure worth while, would shrug her shoulders and turn, away.” There, you see, are three different types of women perfectly presented to the reader in less than 150 words.

There is something essentially cold in the work of Rc|;e Macaulay, an icy detachment that has grown, no doubt* with her experience of life. She is neither sarcastic nor sentimental: she is merely scrupulously just and true. She has given so much justice and tiuth to literature that one -regrets that literary criticism has so conspicuously failed to return tjie tribute. Wl*m the present false bubble of her reputation has burst, however, she will doubtless come into her own as one of the most competent novelists, from the point of view of sheer craftsmanship, of this brilliant l?cerary era. MARGARET MACPHERSON Kaitaia.