The Art of Fiction, pt. 1

No blog of mine could be complete (or even properly begun) without a discussion of Henry James. This will be an on-going project.

In The Art of Fiction, James takes an opportunity (afforded by the writer and critic Walter Besant) to speak on the subject to which he devoted most of his time: fiction writing. The introductory paragraphs demonstrate his belief that fiction written in the English language was at that time undergoing a change from the naïveté of such authors as Thackeray and Dickens to a more complex form. It appears that people began to require more of fiction. Prior to this shift in sentiment, James writes that "there was a comfortable, good-humoured feeling abroad that a novel is a novel, as a pudding is a pudding, and that our only business with it could be to swallow it."

He writes later: "That, I think, represents the manner in which the latent thought of many people who read novels as an exercise in skipping would explain itself if it were to become articulate." This is reminiscent of Ezra Pound's reference to readers of "habitually slack attention" who desire fiction that can easily be lapped up.

Yet James identifies the fact that no longer were people just "swallowing" novels, and this appetite for masticable prose apparently gave rise to such authors as James himself, whose fiction represents a psychological exploration. Other authors of this persuasion imbue their fiction with philosophy and thereby make the work "discutable."

James goes on to imply that this group of persons who demand more of their fiction might still represent a minority. He alludes to an idea that fiction was once even considered "wicked" in England--though wicked perhaps in the sense of being jocular and inconsequential. I believe that impression to be correct, because I remember reading such works by Jane Austen and perhaps the Brontës in which people would remark that they were only reading a novel. This activity seemed (chauvinistically) relegated to women, as if only a "feeble" mind would even consider engaging in such a mawkish activity as reading a novel.

Yet, he laments this pervasive idea that all novels should admit to being "only a joke." He also laments "certain established novelists [who] have a habit of giving themselves away which must often bring tears to the eyes of people who take their fiction seriously." He identifies Anthony Trollope who is often in the habit of reassuring his readers parenthetically that the events of his novel are only make believe. "He admits that the events he narrates have not really happened, and that he can give his narrative any turn the reader may like best." James considers this a "terrible crime." I do too.

In fact, it seems to me that any serious story does lead the writer as much as it takes its readers on a journey. According to my experiences, a writer is little more than a midwife who delivers each sentence as it is begot by its predecessor. A major difference is that the writer too feels the pangs of birth. Therefore, any writer who could be in such charge of the events of a story that he/she can make it take any turn desired has to be guilty of some kind of literary crime. Their stories usually end up lacking unity. No one could accuse Henry James of this.

He goes on to speak of the parallels between the novel and the painting, as both attempt to reflect life.

The artistic novelist is often spurned by the "public" who consider the goodness of a novel to lie in its ability to divert--perhaps through containing lots of action. Other such persons would denote such "goodness" as being dependent on a "'happy ending,' on a distribution at the last of prizes, pensions, husbands, wives, babies, millions, appended paragraphs, and cheerful remarks." lol...

He continues: "The 'ending' of a novel is, for many persons, like that of a good dinner, a course of dessert and ices, and the artist in fiction is regarded as a sort of meddlesome doctor who forbids agreeable aftertastes." So true. I am not strictly opposed to happy endings myself, but unity and artistic integrity dictate that the author go where the work takes him. Or her. That seems a bit more important and noble than writing-the-happy-ending-at-any-cost.