It is always about
to be dramatic and it never is. Chapter III, for instance, contains very
important material, essential to the tale, fundamental. But it is not
presented dramatically. It is presented in the form of a psychological
essay. Now Mr. Masefield's business as a novelist was to have invented
happenings for the presentment of the information contained in this essay.
He has saved himself a lot of trouble, but to my mind he has not yet come
to understand what a novel is.
* * * * *
His creative power is not yet mature. That is to say, he does not convince
the reader in the measure which one would expect from a writer of his
undoubted emotional faculty. And yet he is often guilty of carelessness in
corroborative detail--such carelessness as only a mighty tyrant over the
reader could afford. The story deals largely with journalism. And one of
the papers most frequently mentioned is "The Backwash." Now no paper could
possibly be called "The Backwash." It is conceivable that a paper might be
called "The Tip Top." It is just conceivable that a paper might be called
"Snip Snap." But "The Backwash," never! Mr. Masefield knows this as well
as anybody. The aim of his nomenclature was obviously satiric--an old
dodge which did very well in the loose Victorian days, but which is
excruciatingly out of place in a modern strictly realistic novel.
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