JOHN MASEFIELD
[_20 April '11_]
I opened Mr. John Masefield's novel of modern London, "The Street of
To-day" (Dent and Co.), with much interest. But I found it very difficult
to read. This is a damning criticism; but what would you have? I found it
very difficult to read. It is very earnest, very sincere, very carefully
and generously done. But these qualities will not save it. Even its
intelligence, and its alert critical attitude towards life, will not save
it. I could say a great deal of good about it, and yet all that I could
say in its favour would not avail. It would certainly be better if it were
considerably shorter. I estimate that between fifty and a hundred pages of
small talk and miscellaneous observation could be safely removed from it
without impairing the coherence of the story. The amount of small talk
recorded is simply terrific. Not bad small talk! Heard in real life, it
would be reckoned rather good small talk! But artistically futile! Small
talk, and cleverer small talk than this, smothered and ruined a novel more
dramatic than this--I mean Mr. Zangwill's "The Master." I am convinced
that a novel ought to be dramatic--intellectually, spiritually, or
physically--and "The Street of To-day" is not dramatic.
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