There seem to be so many
stories about which the same things can be said. There seems to be
so much fiction that is "workmanlike," that is "fascinating," that
"nobly grasps contemporary America," that will "become a part of
permanent literature," that "lays bare the burning heart of the
race." Of course the need of the journalist to make everything
"strong" is behind much of this mockery; but not all. Hereditary
disrespect for fiction has more to do with this flood of bad
criticism than appears at first sight.
Far more depressing, however, is the rarity of real criticism of
the novel anywhere. As Henry James, one of the few great critics
who have been willing to take the novel seriously, remarked in a
now famous essay, the most notable thing about the modern novel in
English is its appearance of never having been criticized at all.
A paragraph or so under "novels of the day" is all the novelist
may expect until he is famous, and more in quantity, but not much
more in quality, then. As for critical essays devoted to his work,
discriminating studies that pick out the few good books from the
many bad, how few they are (and how welcome, now that they are
increasing in number), how deplorably few in comparison with the
quantity of novels, in comparison with the quality of the best
novels!
And what of the general public, that last arbiter in a democracy,
whose referendum, for a year at least, confirms or renders null
and void all critical legislation good or bad? The general public
is apparently on the side of the novelist; to borrow a slang term
expressive here, it is "crazy" about fiction.
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