THE AUTHOR'S CRAFT.* WHATEVER differences of opinion may exist about
Mr. Arnold Bennett's artistic quality, there can be no doubt that he is a thoroughly competent literary workman. Whether he is compounding plays, or elaborating sensational fantasias, or instructing the British publics how to concentrate, or analysing subtle cross-currents of emotion in his heroines, or setting an implacable foot upon sentimentalities about genius, he is equally sure of himself and his subject. Like his own fervid Derry, he is determined to "get away with the goods." He knows very well what he wants to do and how he is to do it ; the very style of his English is redolent of a ruthless hammer- ing efficiency. We are consequently surprised to find that The Author's Craft suffers chiefly from lack of a definite purpose. It is continually interesting and piquant ; it has all the frank- ness of The Truth about an Author, and a good deal of the conviction of How to Live on 24 Hours a Day; but the interest is confused, and we are left in the end with the impression that the writer had not quite decided what he was going to aim at.
The first section, on the necessity to the artist of a passionate and critical vision of life, is entirely admirable, and would lead us naturally to expect that it would be followed by an equally sound chapter on the artistic handling of material; but upon this topic Mr. Bennett has apparently nothing original to say. He laments that the world has decided against the importance of technique, and passes on to consider the essential characteristics of the novelises mind; from this he shifts abruptly to the art of the drama, and meditatea on the curious changes undergone by a play from the time it is written until it is produced upon the stage ; and he concludes the whole matter with a vigorous defence of the literary agent, and a vindication of the right of the man of genius to sell his wares in the best market. The Author's Craft is, in short, the promiscuous result of a magazine origin. It is lively and entertaining; but apart from defects of construction, the insistence upon the great principle of " business is busi- ness" becomes at length a little irritating, and almost makes us believe that there may be some truth latent in sentimentality which Mr. Bennett's whole-hearted devotion to the Goddess of Common-Sense has caused him to overlook.
* Tho Author's Craft. By Arnold Bennett. London: Hodder and Stoughton. [8e. 6d, net]
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