Why the Novel Holds Its Own

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 886, 27 July 1956, Page 16

Why the Novel Holds Its Own

[HE novel in our time’ has been faced with considérable competition from films, radio and television-but novels, nevertheless, continue to be writtén atid to be read, and it’s therefore reasonable to suppose that they still have something particular to offer. What this something may be varies ftom oné whiter to anothér, and it is this individual approach that a BBC series We Write Novels tries to isolate. This series takés the form of eight Frogtammes, each cofisisting of a disGession between Walter Alleti and a prominent British novelist. Represented in this series are Nigel Balchin, Joyce Cary, Graham Greene, J. B. Priéstley, Elizabeth Bowen, V. S. Pritchett, C. P. Show, and the promisifig tiewcomer Kingsley Amis. Introducing the progratnmes, Walter Allen (himself a well-known literary critic and novelist) says: "Novels are as various as the men and wotmén who write them, and perhaps that is one réason why the novel, for all that its death is so often announced, still hol’s its own against mass-entertainment, Indeed, it more than holds its own, for whete do the makers of films. radio and television progratnmes 0 often go for Taw material if not to the printed word of fiction?" The first talk in this series is to be broadcast from 2YC at 10,0 pm. on August 5.