Auberon Waugh on new novels
Punctuation Trevor Bowen (Lonsdale 35s)
Mr Barry Cole's letter in the Christmas issue of the SPECTATOR proving conclusively
that there is still an enormous readership for novels, has revolutionised at least one re- viewer's attitude to the English novel. Until I saw Mr Cole's figures compiled from his nearest library, I had naturally assumed that a novel which sold slightly under 5,000 copies (this is a very high average for established English novelists outside the Golden Five) would have a readership of perhaps 15.000. It followed from this or I thought it did— that the attempts occasionally made by quite. reputable novelists to popularise their wares—stick on a happy ending, make the hero more sympathetic, end chapter one with a good, clean bit of sexual intercourse— were as futile as they were shameful. One was aware, of course, that American porno- graphics had been compiled on some sort of electronically tested market research sys- tem, and had sold very well, but the paper- back market in American pornography is not at all the same thing as the English novel.
However, Mr Cole's researches reveal that a novel selling around 5,000 copies (author's rake-off about £750) can reasonably expect to be read by more than 30,000 people who borrow it from public libraries alone. If the Waugh scheme for authors' begging bowls in every public library is accepted, and if voluntary gifts average out at so much as one new penny a borrowing, there would be nothing for novelists not to be cheerful about and we might all start writing such vibrant, happy entertainments as Mr Longrigg has written. For the present, we need no longer accuse Mr Longrigg of futile pandering to the base appetites of readers who never look above Woman's Own. The readership is there, and he is using it for some future adventure. There will be queues and queues of people outside the pub- lic libraries, waiting for a glimpse of The Desperate Criminals, and they will not be disappointed. It is a thoroughly nice, thor- oughly enjoyable book. Before Longrigg can collect his reward, however, I am afraid someone will need to blow up the miser- able Viscount Eccles.
An old English lady, living in a beastly pension on the Cote d'Azur finds the tiny income she enjoys from a legacy suddenly cut off by her English trustees on patriotic grounds. Expelled from her pension, she takes up a life of crime, joining forces with an illiterate Negro and an American run- away girl. Their adventures are described with great charm and sweetness, a total lack of pretentiousness of any sort. Mr.Longrigg sets himself the task of telling a tale and tell it he does. The unaffected simplicity of his narrative style has none of the sly winks or nods of a clever man writing potboilers.
There is no indication that he despises his audience. The only hint that he might have other tricks up his sleeve is contained in an announcement on the dust cover `It claims no philosophy. It is entertainment.' Above all, it is an act of humility by the author to- wards his patrons: he gives them what they want, as well as he can.
It happens that he can do it very well. His book is a joy to read. Novelists should never be scared of sentimentality, if they can get away with it, and Longrigg really lays on the agony in places, but the main impression the book leaves is one of good wholesome entertainment. Why do these words have a satirical ring nowadays? The reason. I sug- gest, is the same as the one which makes writers such embittered, impoverished and pathetic figures on the social scene. There is no shortage of literary talent but there is great shortage of humility and the simple desire to please. The Waugh scheme for authors' begging bowls in public libraries would overcome all these difficulties as in- deed it would overcome every other objec- tion which has ever been raised to the idea that authors should receive a reasonable re- turn for their labours.
Meanwhile I heartily recommend anyone who enjoys a good undemanding read to take Mr Longrigg's book from the public library. Those who enjoyed it as much as I did might care to send him some little token of their appreciation. In my experience it is seldom safe to send letters to a publisher in the hope that they will be forwarded even if they have no money inside them. Long- rigg's address, I learn, is: Orchard House, Crookham, Kent, although the publishers on the dustjacket assure us that he lives in Hampshire.
I don't think I'll be asking his publishers for Mr Trevor Bowen's address yet. The most-damning thing one can say about a first novel is that it is piomising—if it is not promising one does not review it at all. The convention in reviewing first novels is the same as that for answering a maiden speech in •the House of Commons. One looks
-ahead to a brilliant future,' when grateful citizens will take their evening saunter down balmy sun-soaked Trevor Bowen Street and pause to drink a banana split in the cafeteria once patronised by Trevor Bowen and his glittering circle. But I do not feel on this occasion that enterprising sculptors need yet start work on a Trevor Bowen monu- ment in St Paul's Cathedral. All I can say conscientiously about his first novel is that it is promising : there are flashes of genuine wit, occasional evidence of an independent observation of the world around him and a pleasing style. But there is also evidence that the author has very little idea of what a novel is.
His book is basically about a young man, his young friend who is revealed to have a homosexual crush on him, the girl friend who runs off with a rich man, the girl back home and his experiences in decadent Lon- don. The bare bones are those of a love story—nothing wrong with that—but the flesh is where Mr Bowen lets us down. When- ever he feels that the story is moving too fast —it moves with agonising slowness—he sets his hero off on some Byronic ramble through the rainy countryside or through the dark streets of London, boring us stiff with his egocentric introspections.
One can forgive those stilted pretentious conversations between young people about life, art, society, etc. That is all part of the first novel. But if Mr Bowen continues to write novels about himself in such pedantic detail, he will lose his audience, and this will be a pity because, as 1 have said, he has un- mistakable talent.
Novelists in the new dawn will have a clear choice between the left-hand path— introspective, self-indulgent, esoteric, largely unreadable, and the right-hand path—pains- taking, humble, rewarding and rewarded. Longrigg; in The Desperate Criminals, chooses the right-hand path. In its worst deviations, the right-hand path leads to all the vulgarity and mindlessness of the tele- vision advertisement; even in its less de- graded forms, with the unpretentious virtue of Mr Longrigg's novel, it is unlikely to be greeted with anything but derision by the sad, embittered writers of the left-hand path who comprise, for the most part, the nation's novel reviewers. But the left-hand path leads straight and unswerving to the post of novel reviewer on some little-heeded weekly newspaper, reading the awkward, shuffling efforts of some literary teenager. And that 1 am sure is a fate which Mr Bowen would prefer to avoid.
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