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047 - A Batch of Novels · Reviews

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  Speaker 1: Section forty six of reviews by Oscar Wilde. This is
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  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Reading by Robin Cotter, May two thousand seven, Reviews by
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  Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde, edited by Robert Ross, Section forty six, A
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  Speaker 1: batch of novels. Of the three great Russian novelists of
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  Speaker 1: our time, Turgenyev is by far the finest artist. He
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  Speaker 1: has that spirit of exquisite selection, that delicate choice of detail,
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  Speaker 1: which is the essence of style. His work is entirely
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  Speaker 1: free from any personal intention, and by taking existence at
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  Speaker 1: its most fiery colored moments, he can distill into a
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  Speaker 1: few pages of perfect prose the moods and passions of
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  Speaker 1: many lives count Tolstoy's method is much larger, and his
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  Speaker 1: field of vision more extended. He reminds us sometimes of
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  Speaker 1: Paul Veronese, and, like that great painter, can crowd without
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  Speaker 1: overcrowding the giant canvas on which he works. We may
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  Speaker 1: not at first gain from his works that artistic unity
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  Speaker 1: of impression which is Turggnev's chief charm, but once that
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  Speaker 1: we have mastered the details. The whole seems to have
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  Speaker 1: the grandeur and the simplicity of an epic. Dostoevsky differs
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  Speaker 1: widely from both his rivals. He is not so fine
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  Speaker 1: an artist as Turgenev, for he deals more with the
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  Speaker 1: facts than with the effects of life. Nor has he
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  Speaker 1: Tolstoy's largeness of vision and epic dignity. But he has
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  Speaker 1: qualities that are distinctively and absolutely his own, such as
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  Speaker 1: a fierce intensity of passion and concentration of impulse, a
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  Speaker 1: power of dealing with the deepest mysteries of psychology and
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  Speaker 1: the most hidden springs of life, and a realism that
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  Speaker 1: is pitiless in its fidelity and terrible because it is true.
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  Speaker 1: Some time ago we had occasion to draw attention to
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  Speaker 1: his marvelous novel Crime and Punishment, wherein the Haunt of
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  Speaker 1: Impurity and Vice, a harlot and an assassin meet together
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  Speaker 1: to read the story of Dives and Lazarus, and the
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  Speaker 1: outcast girl leads the sinner to make atonement for his sin.
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  Speaker 1: Nor is the book entitled Injury and Insult at all
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  Speaker 1: inferior to that great masterpiece, Mean and ordinary. Though the
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  Speaker 1: surroundings of the story may seem the heroine Natasha is
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  Speaker 1: like one of the noble victims of Greek tragedy. She
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  Speaker 1: is antigony with the passion of Phaedra, and it is
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  Speaker 1: possible to approach her without a feeling of awe. Greek
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  Speaker 1: also is the gloom of nemesis that hangs over each character.
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  Speaker 1: Only it is a nemesis that does not stand outside
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  Speaker 1: of life, but is part of our own nature and
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  Speaker 1: of the same material as life itself. Alyosha, the beautiful
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  Speaker 1: young lad whom Natasha follows to her doom, is a
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  Speaker 1: second Tito Melema, and has all Tito's charm and grace
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  Speaker 1: and fascination. Yet he is different. He would never have
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  Speaker 1: denied Baldassarre in the Square at Florence, nor lied to
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  Speaker 1: Romola about Tessa. He has a magnificent momentary sincerity, a
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  Speaker 1: boyish unconsciousness of all that life signifies, an ardent enthusiasm
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  Speaker 1: for all that life cannot give. There is nothing calculating
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  Speaker 1: about him. He never thinks evil, He only does it.
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  Speaker 1: From a psychological point of view. He is one of
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  Speaker 1: the most interesting care characters of modern fiction. As from
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  Speaker 1: an artistic he is one of the most attractive. As
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  Speaker 1: we grow to know him, he stirs strange questions for
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  Speaker 1: us and makes us feel that it is not the
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  Speaker 1: wicked only who do wrong, nor the bad alone who
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  Speaker 1: work evil. And by what a subtle objective method does
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  Speaker 1: Dostoevsky show us his characters. He never tickets them with
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  Speaker 1: a list, nor labels them with a description. We grow
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  Speaker 1: to know them very gradually, as we know people whom
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  Speaker 1: we meet in society, at first by little tricks of manner,
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  Speaker 1: personal appearance, fancies and dress and the like, and afterwards
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  Speaker 1: by their deeds and words. And even then they constantly
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  Speaker 1: elude us. For though Dostoevsky may lay bare for us
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  Speaker 1: the secrets of their nature, yet he never explains his
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  Speaker 1: personages away. They are always surprising us by something that
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  Speaker 1: they say or do, and keep to the end of
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  Speaker 1: the eternal mystery of life. Irrespective of its value as
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  Speaker 1: a work of art, this novel possesses a deep autobiographical
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  Speaker 1: interest also, as the character of Vanya, the poor student
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  Speaker 1: who loves Natasha through all her sin and shame, is
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  Speaker 1: Dostoyevsky's study of himself. Gothe once had to delay the
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  Speaker 1: completion of one of his novels till experience had furnished
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  Speaker 1: him with new situations. But almost before he had arrived
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  Speaker 1: at manhood, Dostoyevsky new life in its most real forms.
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  Speaker 1: Poverty and suffering, pain and misery, prison, exile, and love
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  Speaker 1: were soon familiar to him, and by the lips of Vanya,
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  Speaker 1: he has told his own story. This note of personal feeling,
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  Speaker 1: this harsh reality of actual experience, undoubtedly gives the book
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  Speaker 1: something of its strange fervor and terrible passion. Yet it
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  Speaker 1: has not made it egotistic. We see things from every
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  Speaker 1: point of view, and we feel not that fiction has
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  Speaker 1: been trammeled by fact, but that fact itself has become
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  Speaker 1: ideal and imaginative. Pitiless too. Though Dostoyevsky is in his
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  Speaker 1: method as an artist, as a man, he is full
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  Speaker 1: of human pity for all, for those who do evil,
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  Speaker 1: as well as for those who suffer it, for the selfish,
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  Speaker 1: no less than for those whose lives are wrecked for others,
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  Speaker 1: and whose sacrifice is in vain. Since Adam Bede and
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  Speaker 1: le Pee Guairo, no more powerful novel has been written
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  Speaker 1: than Insult and Injury. Mister Harding's book Willow Garth deals
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  Speaker 1: strangely enough with something like the same idea, though the
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  Speaker 1: treatment is of course entirely different. A girl of high
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  Speaker 1: birth falls passionately in love with a young farm bailiff
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  Speaker 1: who is a sort of Arcadian Antonus and a very
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  Speaker 1: genymede in Gaiters. Social difficulty is naturally intervene, so she
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  Speaker 1: drowns her handsome rustic in a convenient pond. Mister Harding
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  Speaker 1: has a most charming style, and as a writer, possesses
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  Speaker 1: both distinction and grace. The book is a delightful combination
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  Speaker 1: of romance and satire, and the heroine's crime is treated
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  Speaker 1: in the most picturesque manner possible. Marcella Grace tells of
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  Speaker 1: modern life in Ireland and is one of the best
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  Speaker 1: books Miss Mulholland has ever published. In its artistic reserve
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  Speaker 1: and the perfect simplicity of its style, it is an
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  Speaker 1: excellent model for all lady novelists to follow, and the
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  Speaker 1: scene where the heroine finds the man who has been
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  Speaker 1: sent to shoot her, lying fever stricken behind a hedge
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  Speaker 1: with his gun by his side is really remarkable. Nor
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  Speaker 1: could anything be better than Miss Mulholland's treatment of external nature.
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  Speaker 1: She never shrieks over scenery like a tourist, nor wearies
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  Speaker 1: us with sunsets like the Scotch school. But all through
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  Speaker 1: her book there is a subtle atmosphere of purple hills
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  Speaker 1: and silent moorland. She makes us live with nature and
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  Speaker 1: not merely look at it. The accomplished authoress of Soap
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  Speaker 1: was once compared to George Eliot by the Court Journal,
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  Speaker 1: and to Carlyle by the Daily News. But we fear
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  Speaker 1: that we cannot compete with our contemporaries in these daring comparisons.
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  Speaker 1: Her present book is very clever, rather vulgar, and contain
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  Speaker 1: some fine examples of bad French, as for a marked
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  Speaker 1: Man that winter Night and driven Home. The first shows
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  Speaker 1: some power of description and treatment, but is sadly incomplete.
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  Speaker 1: The second is quite unworthy of any man of letters,
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  Speaker 1: and the third is absolutely silly. We sincerely hope that
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  Speaker 1: a few more novels like these will be published, as
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  Speaker 1: the public will then find out that a bad book
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  Speaker 1: is very dear at a shilling. End of section forty
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  Speaker 1: six