EDWARD GARNETT
BOOKS OF THE DAY
By R. A. SCOTT-JAMES
EDWARD GARNETT presents the baffling case of a man who devoted the whole of his working life to literature, yet whose magnum opus is not to be found in his writings. His critical writing from first to last was full of wisdom ; it was the product of fine sensibility, sound judgement and uncompromising loyalty to conviction. His rare ventures into creative writing —in The Breaking Point, Jeanne d'Arc, The Feud—were interesting by-products of a mind always ready to be excited about the subject-matter of art and its possible treatment. But when (putting aside his letters) we have considered the whole body of his published work, and admitted that this would give him a title to considerable contemporary fame, we have still scarcely begun to account for him. • There is not enough here to explain the high estimation in which he was held by Conrad, Galsworthy, W. H. Hudson, Edward Thomas or D. H. Lawrence, or the righteous indignation 112 aroused in others (for instance, Ford Madox Ford), or the admiration he continued to arouse among younger writers of today (such as H. E. Bates and Sean O'Faolain), to say nothing of the legend that has grown up around him in the American publishing world.
We cannot just dismiss the matter by saying " personality." Edward Thomas once suggested to me that Garnett expended so much energy in talk that there could not be enough left over for the full creative activity of writing. But that is to leave out of account the work—the really creative work— which was by far his most important contribution to literature, and occupied much of the time he devoted to reading, thinking and letter-writing. It consisted in divining the role of this or that writer, making him write, and endeavouring to influence the manner of his writing. If he could not be a great writer himself, at least he would have a finger in the pie—actively intervening in the cooking of it—of men who were great writers. For about thirty years Garnett occupied himself in telling authors what to write, how, and how not to write. I have heard him suggesting the subject of a book to Thomas, and urging Lawrence to exploit to the full his talent for the free exposure of passion. (Once, when asked by a literary editor what were his subjects, " I am an expert," he replied drily, " in the passions.") When he read the manuscript of Galsworthy's A Man of Devon in woo he took the pains to go thrOugh it almost page by page, showing where and how it might be made more realistic, where more or less objective, where completely re-written. By some curious semi-hypnotic process he generally got his suggestions accepted, with the result that the Garnett mind left its impress on much of the important creative literature of his time.
From the early 'nineties down to the last his profession was that of a publisher's reader. •First with Fisher Unwin, to whom he strongly recommended Conrad's first book, Almayer's Folly ; then with Heinemann ; next, for many years, with Duckworth ; finally, for a still longer period, with Jonathan Cape ; and he wrote reviews and occasional critical articles for periodicals. When from . time . to time he found something that was original and genuine he did not rest till he had got it published, if not by his own firm, then by another. Not that he expected big sales from the books he believed in. In his experience the selling successes had gone to mediocrities. Had he not seen Conrad waiting twenty years before he came near being a best seller, W. H. Hudson till his extreme old age, Doughty seldom failing to lose money for his publisher, and Thomas condemned to turn to hack writing for a livelihood ? He was disconcerted and perhaps even a-little -distressed wherr
Galsworthy leapt into the ranks" of the best-sellers. He could never be quite so intimate in his friendship with Galsworthy after that. Quick success, for him, was almost synonymous with mediocrity, if not downright charlatanism. It seemed to imply lack of " new creative vision," Such vision, he had concluded, " affects the contemporary mind as something strange and disturbing and excites the hostility of the common- place person."
It was with the " commonplace person " that he was per- petually at war. He never felt so at home with himself and so happy as when he could denounce what he called " the muddle- headed British public " which turned its eyes away from realities and revelled in sentimentalism. A sort of profound pessimism became the creed which he took the keenest pleasure in expounding. It sometimes seemed as if the chief merit of great writing was to be ignored by the public, and the crowning glory of artistry was to die in the workhouse. On themes such as this, richly illustrated with humorous examples taken from literature and life, Garnett, with his eyes twinkling gaily, his brows contracting and relaxing, his massive jaw emphatic with conviction, would hold forth for hours, splendidly and happily contemplating wickedness and gloom. Yet the young and promising ones whom he had singled out for encouragement did not always wither under his distressful praise, but on the contrary felt themselves growing in stature. So it was with D. H. Lawrence. Once, in the early days of Lawrence's author- ship, he and I were week-end guests at the Cearne. We sat by the fire at night feasting on the genial eloquence of our host as he warmed to the theme of Lawrence's genius. " Lawrence's genius, you see," he would begin, and go on to explain just how, with that background, it lent itself to that fearless exposure of body and soul which was the reality of creative art. And Lawrence, at first shyly, but with growing confidence, began to see himself through Garnett's eyes and to relish the role of the distinctive " genius " allotted to him. Garnett has been called the " discoverer " of genius. He was more than that. He often evoked it, inspired it and moulded it in its early stages, till the genius ran away and mocked him by becoming a best- seller, or stayed by his side and languished.
The greater Russian writers — Tolstoi, Turgenev and Chekhov—provided him with the models of what, fiction should be. He pleaded for the realist's frank facing of life, and was always asking his novelists to write about what they knew in their own experience, and not be afraid of what was harrowing so long as it betrayed the essence of the part of life with which they were dealing. And the critic, in his turn, was not to be hampered by rules, but to attempt first to understand the" temper of his author and to distinguish between what was conventional and what original. He detested most of all the make-believe that masquerades as reality—" the art of the parlour, with its polite appearances and polite conversations."- In practice he :was always alive to the merit of imaginative and even fanciful Writing, and appreciated the points at which reality touches poetry, His instinct was singularly true—it was far sounder than his theory. For him frankness and courage were the major virtues ; and the apparent bitterness of his tongue did not diminish as he got older. But while some of his friends. grew impatient with him, he retained the friends whom he wanted, young is well as old ; and he went on reacting to the last to the impressions which new literature can -afford—bold and cross as an old lion defending its lair, but without losing the.
affection of those for whom he cared.. -
Previous page
