I do not wish to discuss the alleged
new era. Like the younger generation, it has been discussed too
much and is becoming evidently self-conscious. But if the
autobiographical novel is to be regarded as its literary herald
(and they are all prophetic Declarations of Independence), then we
may ask what has the new generation given us so far in the way of
literary art.
Apparently the novel and the short story, as we have known them,
are to be scrapped. Plot, which began to break down with the
Russians, has crumbled into a maze of incident. You can no longer
assume that the hero's encounter with a Gipsy in Chapter II is
preparation for a tragedy in Chapter XXIX. In all probability the
Gipsy will never be heard from again. She is irrelevant except as
a figment in the author's memory, as an incident in autobiography.
Setting, the old familiar background, put on the story like wall-
paper on a living-room, has suffered a sea change also. It comes
now by flashes, like a movie-film. What the ego remembers, that it
describes, whether the drip of a faucet or the pimple on the face
of a traffic policeman. As for character, there is usually but
one, the hero; for the others live only as he sees them, and fade
out when he looks away.
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