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About The Art Of The Novelist
From the PREFACE. This book is for novel-readers. It is meant for those who have unreflectively and sympathetically read so many novels that they have begun to think about them, who have lived within the realm of the story-teller long enough to have some standards and ideals of their own, but have not denned these standards and ideals and thought them out into clear consciousness. Some such readers may find satisfaction in carrying further this reflective appreciation until they attain a more rounded and balanced view of the novelist's art. The author has no idea of indicating the way of approach to novels. Nothing, as Tieck says, is more destructive to sound literary judgment than to begin the study of works of literary art by the way of a premature philosophy, instead of by direct and ample experience, in instinctive obedience to the genius of the masters. Yet to many a reader there comes a time when he feels that he must add to that best and highest delight of frank imaginative sharing in the author's vision some definiteness in his view of great works, a definiteness which may contribute not merely to the enjoyment but to the appreciative understanding of the achievement of the creative mind, and which may make more secure the reader's discrimination between what is great and what is merely fine, between what is solid and what is veneered, between what is noble in spite of faults and what is radically defective in spite of brilliance. Thoughtful readers sooner or later find it not enough to be plunged in the delight of books ; they wish also to discern, compare, and judge. The author of the present book does not believe that such a temper is at all inconsistent with a naive or even childish delight in a good story, for after years of reading novels and systematically thinking about them, he can still lose himself in a good story, and finds his youthful appetite for marvel unimpaired, so that as Clive Newcome says of dinners, " All are good, but some are better than others." Now if this be true of the Professor, the dry stick, why will it not be even more true of the unacademic reader, the green twig? The present writer makes bold to claim some authority as an elder soldier in speaking with his comrade readers ; but he is not bold enough to give any commands to writers. In truth, he is not sure that he knows how to write a novel, having never tried. And the writer of fiction, even if he has the receipt of a successful novel, can hardly be hopeful of telling more than how he supposes himself to have succeeded. If there is one thing more certain than another, it is that there are many ways of literary excellence. The novelist is privileged to belong to a literary sect; but the critic must be catholic, and have no creed not generally necessary to salvation. It is the hope of the writer that no reader will be led by this book to be unfriendly or inhospitable to any type of excellence....
