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051 - A Good Historical Novel · Reviews

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  Speaker 1: Section fifty of reviews by Oscar Wilde. This is a
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  Speaker 1: 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, July two thousand seven, Reviews by
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  Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde, edited by Robert Ross, Section fifty A good
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  Speaker 1: historical novel. Most modern Russian novelists look upon the historical
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  Speaker 1: novel as a full genre or a sort of fancy
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  Speaker 1: dress ball in literature, a mere puppet show, not a
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  Speaker 1: true picture of life. Yet their own history is full
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  Speaker 1: of such wonderful scenes and situations, ready for dramatist or
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  Speaker 1: novelist to teach. Of that we are not surprised in
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  Speaker 1: spite of the dogmas of the equal natural least mister
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  Speaker 1: Stephen Coleridge has taken the Russia of the sixteenth century
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  Speaker 1: as the background for his strange tale. Indeed, there is
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  Speaker 1: much to be said in favor of a form remote
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  Speaker 1: from actual experience. Passion itself gains something from Picturesqueness of surroundings.
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  Speaker 1: Distance of time, unlike distance of space, makes objects larger
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  Speaker 1: and more vivid. Over the common things of contemporary life.
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  Speaker 1: There hangs a mist of familiarity that often makes their
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  Speaker 1: meaning obscure. There are also moments when we feel that
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  Speaker 1: but little artistic pleasure is to be gained from the
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  Speaker 1: study of the modern realistic school. Its works are powerful,
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  Speaker 1: but they are painful, and after a time we tire
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  Speaker 1: of their harshness, their violence, and their crudity. They exaggerate
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  Speaker 1: the importance of facts and underrate the importance of fiction. Such,
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  Speaker 1: at any rate is the mood. And what is criticism
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  Speaker 1: itself but a mood produced in us by a peruse
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  Speaker 1: of mister Coleridge's Demetrius. It is the story of a
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  Speaker 1: young lad of unknown parentage who is brought up in
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  Speaker 1: the household of a Polish noble. He is a tall,
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  Speaker 1: fair looking youth by name Alexis, with a pride of
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  Speaker 1: bearing and grace of manner that seems strange in one
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  Speaker 1: of such low station. Suddenly he is recognized by an
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  Speaker 1: exiled Russian noble as Demetrius, the son of Ivan the Terrible,
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  Speaker 1: who was supposed to have been murdered by the usurper Boris.
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  Speaker 1: His identity is still further established by a strange cross
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  Speaker 1: of seven emeralds that he wears round his neck, and
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  Speaker 1: by a Greek inscription in his book of Prayers, which
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  Speaker 1: discloses the secret of his birth and the story of
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  Speaker 1: his rescue, he himself feels that the blood of kings
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  Speaker 1: beats in his veins, and appeals to the nobles of
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  Speaker 1: the Polish Diet to espouse his cause. By his passionate utterance,
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  Speaker 1: he makes them acknowledge him as the true Tsar and
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  Speaker 1: invades Russia at the head of a large army. The
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  Speaker 1: people thronged to him from every side, and Marfa, the
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  Speaker 1: widow of Ivan the Terrible, escapes from the convent in
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  Speaker 1: which she has been immured by Boris and comes to
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  Speaker 1: meet her son. At first, she seems not to recognize him,
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  Speaker 1: but the music of his voice and the wonderful eloquence
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  Speaker 1: of his pleading win her over, and she embraces him
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  Speaker 1: in presence of the army and admits him to be
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  Speaker 1: her child. The Usurper, terrified at the tidings and deserted
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  Speaker 1: by his soldiers, commits suicide, and Alexis enters Moscow in
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  Speaker 1: triumph and is crowned in the Kremlin. Yet he is
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  Speaker 1: not the true Demetrius. After all, he has deceived himself
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  Speaker 1: and he deceives others. Mister Coleridge has drawn his character
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  Speaker 1: with delicate, subtlety and quick insight, and the scene in
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  Speaker 1: which he discovers that he is no son of Ivans
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  Speaker 1: and has no right to the name he claims is
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  Speaker 1: exceedingly powerful and dramatic. One point of resemblance does exist
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  Speaker 1: between Alexis and the real Demetrius. Both of them are murdered,
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  Speaker 1: and with the death of this strange hero, mister Coleridge
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  Speaker 1: ends his remarkable story on the whole. Mister Coleridge has
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  Speaker 1: written a really good historical novel and may be congratulated
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  Speaker 1: on his success. The style is particularly interesting, and the
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  Speaker 1: narrative parts of the book are deserving of high praise
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  Speaker 1: for their clearness, dignity, and sobriety. The speeches and passages
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  Speaker 1: of dialog are not so fortunate, as they have an
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  Speaker 1: awkward tendency to lapse into bad blank verse. Here, for instance,
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  Speaker 1: is a speech printed by mister Coleridge as prose, in
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  Speaker 1: which the true music of prose is sacrificed to a
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  Speaker 1: false metrical system which is at once monotonous and tiresome.
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  Speaker 1: But death, who brings his freedom from all falsehood, who
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  Speaker 1: heals the heart when the physician fails. Who comforts all
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  Speaker 1: whom life cannot console, who stretches out in sleep, the
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  Speaker 1: tired watchers. He takes the king and proves him but
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  Speaker 1: a beggar he speaks, And we deaf to our maker's voice,
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  Speaker 1: hear and obey the call of our destroyer. Then let
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  Speaker 1: us murmur not at anything. For if our ills are curable,
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  Speaker 1: tis idle, and if they are past remedy, tis vain.
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  Speaker 1: The worst our strongest enemy can do is take from
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  Speaker 1: us our life, and this, indeed is in the power
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  Speaker 1: of the weakest. Also, this is not good prose. It
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  Speaker 1: is merely blank verse of an inferior quality. And we
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  Speaker 1: hope that mister Coleridge, in his next novel will not
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  Speaker 1: ask us to accept second rate poetry as musical prose. Four.
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  Speaker 1: That mister Coleridge is a young writer of great ability
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  Speaker 1: and culture cannot be doubted. And indeed, in spite of
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  Speaker 1: the error we have pointed out, Demitrius remains one of
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  Speaker 1: the most fascinating and delightful novels that has appeared this season.
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  Speaker 1: End of section fifty. A good historical novel