'RAVEN AMONG THE WEEDS
'Sia,—In his review of Coronet Among the Weeds Mr. Raven seemed almost naively unaware of an obvious critical truth. Writing about one's own feelings and experiences is always a form of showing off, even the best writing. Tolstoy, D. H. Lawrence and George Orwell are as obscurely self-satisfied here as is Miss Bingham or as Mr. Raven himself. Miss Bingham appears to be an agreeable and lively girl presenting herself, with unshakable complacency no doubt but also with accuracy, as an agreeable and lively girl. Mr. Raven would prefer some odious and ill-natured author revealing, with an equally un- shakable complacency, just how odious and ill- natured he is.
'Thank God I am not as other men (or girls) are,' is an attitude which the author whose tale is only of himself simply cannot avoid taking; and with social and literary fashions as they are today prigs are more often found among the vicious than among the virtuous. My sword is not specially keen to leap from its scabbard in defence of Miss Bingham, but I do feel Mr. Raven might have found a better reason for being nasty about her, if he wanted to be.
Previous page
