The Craft of Fiction | Page 4

a scholar)--the modern novel asks for no
other equipment in its readers than this common gift, used as
instinctively as the power of breathing, by which we turn the flat
impressions of our senses into solid shapes: this gift, and nothing else
except that other, certainly much less common, by which we
discriminate between the thing that is good of its kind and the thing that
is bad. Such, I should think, is very nearly the theory of our criticism in
the matter of the art of fiction. A novel is a picture of life, and life is
well known to us; let us first of all "realize" it, and then, using our taste,
let us judge whether it is true, vivid, convincing--like life, in fact.
The theory does indeed go a little further, we know. A novel is a
picture, a portrait, and we do not forget that there is more in a portrait
than the "likeness." Form, design, composition, are to be sought in a
novel, as in any other work of art; a novel is the better for possessing
them. That we must own, if fiction is an art at all; and an art it must be,
since a literal transcript of life is plainly impossible. The laws of art,
therefore, apply to this object of our scrutiny, this novel, and it is the
better, other things being equal, for obeying them. And yet, is it so very
much the better? Is it not somehow true that fiction, among the arts, is a
peculiar case, unusually exempt from the rules that bind the rest? Does
the fact that a novel is well designed, well proportioned, really make a
very great difference in its power to please?--and let us answer honestly,
for if it does not, then it is pedantry to force these rules upon a novel. In
other arts it may be otherwise, and no doubt a lop-sided statue or an
ill-composed painting is a plain offence to the eye, however skilfully it
may copy life. The same thing is true of a novel, perhaps, if the fault is

very bad, very marked; yet it would be hard to say that even so it is
necessarily fatal, or that a novel cannot triumphantly live down the
worst aberrations of this kind. We know of novels which everybody
admits to be badly constructed, but which are so full of life that it does
not appear to matter. May we not conclude that form, design,
composition, have a rather different bearing upon the art of fiction than
any they may have elsewhere?
And, moreover, these expressions, applied to the viewless art of
literature, must fit it loosely and insecurely at best--does it not seem so?
They are words usurped from other arts, words that suppose a visible
and measurable object, painted or carved. For criticizing the craft of
fiction we have no other language than that which has been devised for
the material arts; and though we may feel that to talk of the colours and
values and perspective of a novel is natural and legitimate, yet these are
only metaphors, after all, that cannot be closely pressed. A book starts a
train of ideas in the head of the reader, ideas which are massed and
arranged on some kind of system; but it is only by the help of fanciful
analogies that we can treat the mass as a definite object. Such phrases
may give hints and suggestions concerning the method of the novelist;
the whole affair is too nebulous for more. Even if a critic's memory
were infallible, as it can never be, still it would be impossible for him
to give a really scientific account of the structure of the simplest book,
since in the last resort he cannot lay his finger upon a single one of the
effects to which he refers. When two men stand looking at a picture, at
least their two lines of vision meet at a point upon the canvas; they may
dispute about it, but the picture stands still. And even then they find
that criticism has its difficulties, it would appear. The literary critic,
with nothing to point to but the mere volume in his hand, must
recognize that his wish to be precise, to be definite, to be clear and
exact in his statements, is hopelessly vain.
It is all undeniable, no doubt; from every side we make out that the
criticism of a book--not the people in the book, not the character of the
author, but the book--is impossible. We cannot remember the book, and
even if we could, we should still be unable to describe it in literal and
unequivocal terms. It cannot be done; and the only thing to be said is

that perhaps it can be