The Shadows of Grub Street

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 792, 24 September 1954, Page 4

The Shadows of Grub Street

T was reported recently. that John o’ London’s Weekly, "one of the last of Britain’s literary magazines," was to cease publication "for economic reasons." People who grew up with the journal, and whose memories of it are coloured from youthful enthusiasms, will feel a twinge of personal regret. It was never, perhaps, a first-class journal: the desire and the need to reach a large public led often to a superficial treatment of letters. Newspapers and weeklies like The Times, The Observer and The Spectator give ample space to book reviews; and serious readers feel no need to have their criticism served up with an air of novelty, or in ways believed to have a popular appeal. The public sought by John o’ London's, especially in its later years, has probably been drawn away by films, radio and television. Nevertheless, the death of a journal devoted to the arts is an event to be regretted for its own sake as well as for its significance as a social symptom. tax One result will be a further constriction of the market now available for English writers. Very few people can support themselves by creative writing, and John o’ London’s helped to provide congenial opportunities and useful fees. In recent years all kinds of magazines and reviews have disappeared. Although some births have been recorded — Encounter, for instance, and the London Magazine -many writers are convinced that the outlook for literature is bad, and is becoming worse. J. B. Priestley, brooding over the condition of Grub Street, declared a month or two ago that the status of the author is declining. A new Dickens could not hope to have an audience of the size that welcomed The Old Curiosity Shop. People who waited impatiently for the next instalment might now be preoccupied with Mrs. Dale or Gilbert Harding. Mr. Priestley admits that the new "mass media" are bringing opportunities, but he

believes that writers who serve the cinema and television are not likely to be regarded as more than "medium-level" technicians. This is not the end of a sad story. Younger novelists are finding it hard (they say) to reach their markets. The economics of publishing demand best or at least brisk sellers, and many of the most successful books are being written, not by novelists, but by men of action who can tell dramatic stories of adventure, escape and exploration. It is true that contemporary novelists are seldom able to make large fortunes -partly, perhaps, because their earnings are heavily taxed. But writing was a hazardous profession long before radio and television, and by its nature it must continue to be so, no matter what is done to ease the difficulties. Fame in letters may be desirable and pleasant, for it is at least an assurance of recognition; but a man whose work is done in solitude must not expect the sort of success which comes to film stars. Good writers will always be admired and respected-not necessarily by the multitude, whose affections are often given capriciously, but by people who read good books; and it is only through the interest and approval of these people that writing can become literature. Times may be harder for novelists, though the large number of second-rate novels now on the market makes it seem probable that publication is less difficult than it is supposed to be. Moreover, the demand for "authentic" narrative suggests that fiction is suffering too much from the uncertainties of the age, and that novelists might do better if they were able to rediscover a larger world. We may be certain of one thing: that the genuine storyteller will always have his audience. In the words of an editorial in The Times Literary Supplement: "The situation of the writer was gloomy, but not hopeless in Johnson’s time; it is gloomy but not hopeless now."