The Value in the Novel Today

Abstract

Mr. Frank Swinterton, in an article published in the Spectator for July 10, 1942, has as his text the bankruptcy of the modern novel. His position reminds one of that taken up by Mr Ford Madox Ford's great-aunt Eliza when she uttered the famous saying, “Sooner than be idle, I'd take up a book and read”! Himself a serious practitioner in the field of fiction, and a critic well aware of the achievements in technique among modern novelists, he yet believes that the modern novel lacks creative power and imaginative sympathy, significance, in short—greatness. Here he puts a case popularly which has been stated in more academic ways by writers of different shades of opinion over a considerable period. Yet, in spite of the weight of the arguments advanced by attackers of twentieth-century work, it may not prove necessary to share Mr Swinnerton's downcast mood. Certain novels have appeared, the quality of which will only be fully assessed by time, but which bear genuine marks of power and of life beyond today. Thus significance may be emerging from those very tendencies condemned by the critics although, blinded by the light of the established masterpiece, reader and critic alike may fail to see the beauty of its analogue as it slips from the press of today into their hands.