Chapter 3 On Modern Fiction

On any examination, even the most casual and cursory glance, of the modern novel, we cannot avoid taking for granted that the modern practice of the art is some improvement over the past.It may be said that, with simple tools and primitive materials, Fielding excelled, and Jane Austen still more, but their opportunities are nothing compared to ours!Their masterpieces do have a curious simplicity.Comparing literary creation with a certain process, such as the car manufacturing process, may seem similar at first glance, but it is not appropriate to look at it carefully.Although we have learned a great deal in the manufacture of machines in the past few centuries, it is doubtful whether we have learned much in the production of literature.We have not written better than our predecessors.It can only be said this way: we are constantly making little progress here and there, and now and then there;Needless to say, we have no right to consider ourselves (even temporarily) in that privileged position.Standing on the flat ground, squeezed among the bustling crowd, the sky is full of dust and fog, and our eyes are hard to open. With envy, we look back at those soldiers who are happier than us. Their battles have been won and their results are so brilliant. We can't help whispering: their battles may not be as fierce as ours.This is for the historian of literature to decide whether we are at the beginning, middle, or end of a great era of prose fiction;All we know is that certain attitudes of admiration or hostility motivate us; that certain roads lead to fertile fields, others to barren heaths and deserts;

We are not arguing with the classical writers.If we are arguing with Mr. Wells, Mr. Bennett, Mr. Galsworthy, it is partly because they are alive, and so their writings have a living, breathing, often The flaws that appear make us dare to treat them arbitrarily.Indeed, we are indebted to these three writers for their many contributions; on the other hand, we are indebted to Mr. Hardy and Mr. Conrad, and to The Purple Land, The Green Mansion, and Far Away So do we, but to a much lesser degree, Mr.Mr. Wells, Mr. Bennett, and Mr. Galsworthy have raised many hopes and repeatedly disappointed.We are, therefore, chiefly grateful to them for revealing to us what they might have done and not to do, and for pointing out what we certainly cannot do, but perhaps equally certainly do not want to do.A few words cannot sum up our reproaches and dissatisfaction with their works; they are voluminous, of varying quality, and of mixed essence, admirable and disappointing at the same time.If we wanted to explain what we mean in one word, we would say that these three writers were materialists.They disappoint us because they care more about the body than the mind, and leave us with the feeling that English fiction is better off (as politely as possible) turning away from them and striding away, even into the desert. There is nothing wrong with going here, and the sooner you leave, the better for saving the soul of English fiction.It is naturally impossible to kill three birds with one stone with just one word.As far as Mr. Wells is concerned, the word materialism is clearly off target.Even so, however, this remark recalls the deadly impurity that mingled with his genius, the clump of mud that mingled with his pure inspiration.Of the three, Mr. Bennett was perhaps the worst culprit precisely because he was a master craftsman.He writes his books with such mastery and compactness that even the most captious critics find them unassailable and seamless.There is no air even between the casements, and no gaps above the wainscots.And yet—what if life refuses to linger in such a house?The writer who wrote Old Wives Tales, George Kennan and Edwin Clayhanger, and many others, can claim to have overcome this danger.His characters live well-fed, even unimaginable lives.However, one has to ask: how did they live?And why should they live?We seem to think that they will even abandon their well-built villas in the Five Towns, and spend more and more time in the first-class soft-seat carriages of the train, pressing various electric bells and buttons, roaming in the dust; The destination of the trip has become more and more clear, that is, to enjoy the happiness in the best hotel in Brighton.It cannot be said of Mr. Wells that he is called a materialist because he is too fond of making his stories compact.He was too compassionate to allow himself to spend too much time getting everything in order and down to earth.He is a materialist purely out of the heart of a bodhisattva, and he takes on the work that should be done by government officials. Too many ideals and facts occupy his heart, which makes him have no time to take care of or often ignores the role of his characters. How raw and rough.Could there be a harsher criticism than to say that Wells's earth and heaven are, and will be, only the dwellings of his Joan and Peter?Whatever institutions and ideals their creators generously bestow upon them, do not their inferior natures always overshadow them?Notwithstanding our deep admiration for the integrity and benevolence of Mr. Galsworthy, we do not find in his writings what we seek.

If we attach a label of materialism to all these books, we mean that they write about insignificant things; into something plausible and enduring. We have to admit, we're a little picky.What is more, we find it rather difficult to account for what it is that we demand, in order to justify our dissatisfaction.At different times, our doubts come in different forms.However, when we casually leave a novel we just finished reading, this question comes back to our minds with great stubbornness, and we sigh—is it really worth it?What is its purpose?Could it be that, by one of those petty lapses which the human mind seems so often to have, Mr. Bennett, as he comes along with his incomparably fine apparatus, to capture life, is veered off course? an inch or two?As a result, life slips away; and perhaps without life, nothing else matters.To have to resort to such a metaphor is to admit frankly that my views are somewhat ambiguous; but we would not be any better off if we spoke of reality, as critics are accustomed to, instead of life. .Admitting that all criticism of fiction is somewhat ambiguous, we may venture to suggest that for us the most fashionable form of fiction at the moment tends to miss rather than get what we seek.Whether we call this most fundamental thing life or mind, truth or reality, it has drifted away, or gone far away, unwilling to be bound by such ill-fitting cloaks as we have provided.In spite of this, we still persistently and consciously construct our 32-chapter magnum opus according to a design blueprint, but this blueprint is more and more different from what we have imagined in our minds. alike.A great deal of labor is expended in proving that the plot of the work is indeed true to life, not only wasted energy, but misplaced energy, so as to obscure the light of thought.The author, as if not of his own free will, but under the coercion of some powerful and despotic tyrant who enslaves him, offers us plots, comedy, tragedy, love, and pleasure, and with a possible The atmosphere embellishes all this and makes it so invulnerable that if his characters were brought to life they would find themselves dressed down to every button in the fashion of the day.The will of the tyrannical tyrant has been carried out, and the novel has been concocted just right.And yet, with every page filled with such legal concoctions, sometimes—and this happens more and more often as the years go by—we feel a sudden moment of doubt, a burst of rebellion. .Is life like this?Does the novel have to be like this?

Deep down, life seems far from "so".Consider the inner workings of an ordinary person in an ordinary day.The mind receives thousands of impressions--trivial, strange, fleeting, or etched on the mind with a sharp steel knife.They come from all directions, like a constant shower of countless atoms; when these atoms fall to form the life of Monday or Tuesday, the emphasis is different from before; the important moment is not here but It's about him.Therefore, if the writer is a free man instead of a slave, if he can follow his own will instead of conformity, if he can base his work on personal experience instead of conventional tradition, then there will be no conventional plot, Comedy, tragedy, love's joy or disaster, and perhaps not a single button is put on in the way the Bond Street tailor is wont to do.Life is not a pair of symmetrically fitted spectacles; life is a bright halo, a translucent envelope that surrounds us consistent with our consciousness.Is it not the task of the novelist to put into words this varied, indescribable, indefinable inner spirit, however perverse and complex it may appear, with as little external impurity as possible? ?We are not merely pleading for courage and sincerity; we are reminding you that there is a difference between what is really appropriate fiction and what custom has given us.

At any rate, we have attempted, in a similar manner, to illustrate the qualities of several young writers, which distinguish their work from that of their predecessors, and of whom Mr. James Joyce of the best.They strive to be closer to life, to preserve more sincerely and accurately what arouses their interest and moves them.In order to do this, they go so far as to abandon most of the conventions followed by the average novelist.Let us record the atoms in the order in which they fell upon men's minds; let us trace the pattern, however incoherent and inconsistent it may appear to be; Details leave traces in the mind.Let us not take it for granted that there is a richer and fuller life in things recognized as great than in things commonly thought small.Anyone who has read "Portrait of a Painter in His Youth," or the far more interesting work now appearing in the "Little Review" will risk suggesting something like this. theory, to illustrate Mr. Joyce's intentions.From our side, it is a risk rather than a certainty to make unreasonable comments when there is only an incomplete fragment in front of us.Whatever the overall intent of the book, however, it is unquestionably sincere; and what it produces, though we may find it obscure or unpleasant, is undeniably important.Contrary to those we call materialists, Mr. Joyce is a spiritualist.He spared no expense to reveal the gleam of an inner fire whose message flashed through his mind, and in order to preserve it, Mr. Joyce mustered up the courage to bring what seemed to be external accidental factors into the world. Sublate all, whether it is a signpost of possibility, coherence, or the like, which has for generations been the backbone of the reader's imagination when he needs to imagine what he cannot touch or see.The scene in the cemetery, for example, with its brilliance, its vulgar atmosphere, its incoherence, its sudden lightning flash of significance, is undoubtedly close to the essence of the inner workings.In any case, once you read it for the first time, it's hard not to hail it as a masterpiece.If what we've asked for is life as it is, we've found it here.If we wanted to say what else we were looking forward to, if we wanted to say why such an inventive work still struggles to match or The Mayor of Casterbridge, we honestly find ourselves having to search .We use the above two works for comparison, because we must cite the highest example.Joyce's works cannot be compared with the above-mentioned masterpieces because the author's thoughts are relatively poor. Of course, we can simply say that and let it go.However, it is still possible to explore this question a little further.Can we draw an analogy with this feeling: we feel like we are in a small, bright room, feeling cramped instead of open and free, because we are limited not only by the writer's mind but also by the way he writes? .Isn't it this way of writing that inhibits creativity?Is it not because of this way of writing that we are neither joyful nor comfortable, confined to a self that, though nuanced in its senses, never contains or creates anything beyond itself?Maybe it is a bit instructive. Because of the emphasis on describing the humble and wretched, doesn't it produce a dry, lonely, narrow-minded effect?Or is it simply due to the fact that people, especially modern people, are much more likely to feel its faults than to name its virtues in any endeavor of this originality?In any case, it is a mistake to stay out of the matter and examine various "ways".If we are writers, any way that expresses what we want to say is good; if we are readers, any way that brings us closer to the novelist's intention is also good.The advantage of this approach is that it brings us closer to what we intend to call "life as it is."Doesn't reading it remind one of how much life has been excluded and neglected?Wouldn't it be startling to turn over Triston Shandy or Pendennis and be convinced that there are not only other, but more important sides to life?

Whatever the case may be, the problem facing the novelist today, we assume, is the same as in the past, to find ways to describe freely his chosen subject matter.He must have the courage to declare publicly that he is no longer interested in "this" but in "that"; and he must choose from "that" alone to compose his work.For modern man, "the point"—that is, the point of concentration of interest—may well lie in the ambiguous realm of psychology.Immediately, therefore, the emphasis is slightly different, emphasizing something hitherto neglected.A different form of outline immediately becomes necessary; it is difficult for us to grasp, and difficult for our predecessors to understand.No one but moderns, or rather Russians, would be interested in the scenario set out in the short story Chekhov himself christened Gushev.Some Russian soldiers fell ill on a ship carrying them home.The author gives us fragments of their conversations and thoughts.Then one of the soldiers died and his body was removed.The conversation went on for some time, until Gushev himself died, looking "like a carrot or turnip," and thrown into the sea.The author places emphasis in such unexpected places that at first it seems almost impossible to see the point.Later, when the eyes gradually adapt to the dim light and can distinguish the shapes of the objects in the room, we can see how perfect and profound this short story is, and how faithfully Chekhov faithfully reproduced the scene in his own mind. "This," "that," and other details are chosen and put together to form something new.But we can't say "This is comedy" or "That's tragedy"; and we're not sure if it's a short story, because, according to the concepts we've learned, a short story has to be concise and have a conclusion. , but this work is a bit confusing and inconclusive.

The most superficial critiques of modern British fiction almost inevitably involve Russian influence.And if the Russians are mentioned, it may well be felt that it would be a waste of time to write about any other novel than theirs.If we want to understand the soul and the heart, where else can we find a depth comparable to it but in the Russian novel?If we are weary of our own materialism, the least of their novelists is born with a natural admiration for the human mind. "Learn to attach yourself to people as a brother...but do not sympathize with your head—for that is easy to do—but from your heart, and love them." Sympathy for the suffering of others, love for them, If it is holy to strive toward the goal worthy of the soul, we seem to see in every Russian writer the hallmarks of this saintliness.It is that divine quality in them that disturbs us at the pettiness of our own lack of religious zeal, and makes many of our great novels seem pompous and artful by comparison.The conclusions of the thought of such a large-minded and sympathetic Russian are inevitably extremely sad.In fact, we can say more precisely: Russian thinking has no definite conclusions.They give the impression of no answers; if life is looked at honestly, it raises one question after another, which cannot possibly be answered, but just keeps ringing back and forth, one after another, until The story is over, and that question, which has no hope of being answered, fills us with a deep, and finally perhaps even angry, despair.Maybe they are right.There is no doubt that they can see farther than we do, and without the huge obstacles that obscure our view.But maybe we also see something they don't, otherwise why should this voice of their protest merge with our melancholy?This voice of protest is the voice of another ancient civilization.The spread of this ancient civilization seems to have cultivated in us an instinct to enjoy and fight instead of suffering and understanding.The English novel, from Sterne to Meredith, proves that our national nature loves humor and comedy, human beauty, intellectual activity, and physical fitness.Comparing these two diametrically opposed novels, it is useless to infer what the consequences are, except that they do give us a good grasp of the idea of ​​an art's infinite possibilities, and remind us that, The world is vast, and nothing but hypocrisy and affectation - not a single "way," not a single experiment, not even the most fanciful - is taboo.This is the deduced conclusion of this comparison, and nothing more.The so-called "appropriate novel subject matter" does not exist.All are proper subjects for fiction; from every feeling, from every thought, from every trait of mind and heart, we may draw;If we could imagine that the art of the novel came to life as a living being, and stood among us, she would surely make us not only adore her and love her, but threaten and destroy her.For only in this way can she regain her youth and secure her authority.