A ROLAND FOR AN OLIVER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 851, 20 December 1929, Page 6

A ROLAND FOR AN OLIVER

SINCLAIR LEWIS—AN APPRECIATION

I Written tor THE SUN) I<' VANGELICAL Dr. French E. Oliver J tehsi us that Sinclair Lewis is not taken seriously in America; that he is a literary mediocrity. What an unwise thing to have said! For we know that Lewis is both representatively read, and that he is a literary force. Lewis is typical of the growing class of American people whose, outlook anil inlook on life is radically Opposed to Jonah t.nd Genesis standards. The author of “Babbitt” and "Dodsworth” is of the modern generation and as such —for where is there

a place like America for modernity?— he cannot help but have a large public. And he is so aware of the strivings of this class and Its aching consciousness of an (as yet) ungras pable ideal; so in sympathy with and. at the same time, intolerant of their strivings, that it were impossible for the man, had he no faintest idea of form in writing to produce a book devoid of human significance. But Lewis, having a very definite knowledge and appreciation of form is able to produce works of importance not only to humanity in general but also to the literary world. From “Our Mr. Wren,” through a series of increasingly potent studies of the New American mentality, reaching a really great climax in “Dodsworth,” one can trace the glowingly subtle relationship between his characters and the whole book-body of which they are but the limbs. There is never any suggestion off compulsion on the part of the author to make his men and women accord their actions with the situations evolved en route; rather do these men and womext blend effortlessly with the situation; rather are the actors and their parts mutually complementary, which is yery great writing.

I Now if we accept Dr. Oliver’s extraordinary statement regarding the literary abilities of Sinclair Lewis, we must also accept his implied criticism of that author’s aesthetic sense, since the Art of Letters is a ladder of approach to an appreciation of the beautiful. And it is surpassingly ridiculous to say that Lewis’s mind is mediocre la Its standards of beauty. It would be extremely difficult, surely, to And an author having more definite ideas Zof beauty and its converse than LewisJ His love of beauty, as shown in the intimacy existing between

Martin Arrowsmith and his plucky little Jwife, is only equalled by his horror of ugliness to be seen In the samei book; a herror urging him to give fis pen-paintings of the hideousness of plague which are almost too terrifyingly alive. No! It is not tenable that Lewis is an aesthetic weakling. JHe has suffered infinitely too greatjy in his early life to be able now, In success, to be second rate. Likt> John Galsworthy, Lewis has studied, with tremendous carefulness, the people who form the subject-mat-ter o£ his books. He has sought to discojer their life-motives, to live in their* minds. Katherine Mansfield once Iwrote that, in order to portray people, it was necessary to know them- considerably better than they knew- themsel-'es. Lewis has succeeded in doing this, in establishing n contact between himself and the inner- mind of the American embryo luiddfc classes which gives to him an undiiiptanding of the difficulties besetting these people, of the difficulties of which they are scarcely aware. He sees ; their little blatancies, their gaucJrerivs, their childlike joy in their own Self-importance, their naive love

of eiflotlonally beautiful things. . . . He sees all these characteristics and out of them, using his own experiences of li*;6, using his real selective genius, he btji Ids up the portraits of persons and places which put before the publiei. ’tween covers of his books, the mentality and soul of the world’s younsest race. It is a clich6 to speak of “great booki’; nevertheless, one must do so

iu speaking of the Lewis novels. They are too full of humanity, too full of common sense, allied with realism, to be anything but large and beautiful, significant and brave. And, in conclusion, it may be of help to Dr, Oliver if I suggest to him herewith that criticism is an art, a constructive art; and that in order to appreciate a book, it is necessary to digest, as well as to swallow, the matter contained in that hook. C. H. CUNNINGHAM. Auckland. DALE COLLINS STILL LOOKING FOR LOCAL COLOUR! TV ALE COLLINS, Australian author, * ' who made a name for himself when he wrote “Ordeal,” has returned after many years’ absence, to Sydney, —as a steward! After the publication of his first remarkable work simultaneously in Britain and the United States, Collins received fancy prices for subsequent novels and short stories. His latest novel is “Idolaters,” his fifth in the space of a few years, and the publishers are asking for more. Many golden shekels have come his way since he was a junior reporter on the Melbourne “Herald.” He left Australia on the luxurious motor-boat Speejacks, to write the story of the trip for the millionaire owner, who used to pick the Speejacks up at various ports, after travelling on luxurious liners in the meantime.

That trip supplied .the local colour for Collins’s novel, "Ordeal.” Presumably he is looking for more local colour, or characters. At any rate, he has arrived as a steward on the City of Delhi. His wife, whom he married in England, is an Australian. She must have a good idea of a joke, too, as she is signed on as a stewardess.