BEST SELLERS AND THE ATLANTIC
BOOKS OF THE DAY
By JOHN CARTER
• THE fact that the inhabitants of England and those of the United States of America speak languages so nearly related that they can understand each other with fair ease has been a stumbling-block as well as an advantage to the relations between the two peoples. A Frenchman or a Norwegian speaks a different language ; he is a foreigner ; you do not expect readily to understand, him—his tastes, his mind, his attitude to life—even if you can understand some of the words he speaks. But the Americans and the English have so much in common, of language, tradition and ancestry, that each unconsciously expects in the other an extension of the similarity far beyond the reasonable, and therefore tends to regard any departure from his own norm as something surprising and regrettable.
The existence of this state of things on the literary front is perhaps less marked than in practical affairs, inasmuch as those who read are less insular, on the whole, than those who do not : but it nevertheless exists. And the most cursory examination of its manifestations shows that in this instance it is largely confined to England Literary America has never had any prejudice against English imports (even if it does impose a 15 per cent, duty on the actual books), and from the days when American publishers suborned the theft of advance proofs of Scott's novels in order to beat their competitors to a start in the U.S. market, there has always been a ready sale for outstanding English books across the Atlantic. In some cases American appreciation has outstripped our Own; and I should not be surprised to learn that Miss Rosamond Lehmann and Mr. Aldous Huxley—to name only two distinguished Writers of today—sold more heavily in America than they do in their own country.
Receptivity in the opposite direction has not been marked until recent years, with a few notable exceptions. Poe was intimately linked with European, especially French, letters, and so perhaps had an unfair advantage : but in any case his genius would have been sufficient to override any barrier. Washington Irving and Fenimore Cooper did make some mark in England. Melville, one of the first really American writers, made very little—Moby Dick, in fact, was remaindered. And Whitman fared little better. If the Bostonian group in the middle of the nineteenth century had a considerable vogue here, it was largely because they were in many ways more English than the English. Mark Twain, however, an American of Americans, is a true exception. "Do you know Huckleberry Finn?" said Marlowe in Trent's Last Case :- "DO I know my own name ? " exclaims Trent in reply ; and that probably goes for most of us.
But with a handful of exceptions it may be said that, until tile post-War period, the more indigenously American writers suffered the same fate as the local wines of France or Italy, which "do not travel " ; whereas such violently English authors as Dickens sold by the thousand in the United States.
Of recent years American literature has become more completely independent of English influences, and indeed in several departments the tide of influence has already set in the other direction. Witness, for instance, Messrs. Ernest Hemingway and Dashiell Hammett. And, with a considerable time-lag, its invasion of the English market on a big scale has followed. Perhaps, just as America is shaking off some of its "import snobbery," so England is learning that other countries too can produce first rate articles.' And if Packards and silk stockings, why not Caldwell, Faulkner and Saroyan ?
In one particular class of fiction, American superiority has always been admitted—the " tough " novel. It has been often, and rightly, observed that not only do American characters make better toughs than English, but American is a much better language than English to be tough in : and the English
imitations of this genre are usually painfully feeble: It is true that a strong dose of sentimentality is demanded, so that James Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice is a great success, whereas a genuinely tough book like Fast One, by Paul Cain (no relation, I understand), is a flop, but, then this is a taste common to that, section of the reading public in both countries.
American humour is so obviously a very different thing from English that it does not invjite comparisons. Those who like it, bite it enormously : And though _Ogden Nash 's English -public is still hopelessly _ttnremtmerative (did not The Times -Literary -SuppleMent'S re.vieWer of Hard Lines warn the author that he ought. to be More careful with his rhYmes?), Thorne Smith has ri&de some headway, Peter Arno a distinct hit.' Even the incomPaMble, but admittedly esoteric, James Thurber must by now sellto per cent or so of his due. As for Runyon, his fans. are sucka nuisance that perhaps Lardner's neglect is a blessing in disguise.
• There have been signs, too, that American fiction of the serious-cum-popular class is coming into its own in 'England. Sinclair Lewis hai long been with . us, and Louis Bromfield, and several more. And it is perhaps significant that three 'of America's really sensational best sellers of the last few years —Anthony Adverse; Gone With the Wind, and now Northwest Passage—have made big successes in this country The very fact that a few really great booki like A •Farewell to Arms; Sortie of the big popular sellers, Many detective novels, a little humour and a lot of toughs have crossed the Atlantic .to success in England, prompts the question why a number of other works of fiction, distinguished in their various ways and popular in their ()inn Country,' haVe failed- to appeal here. To books like Bessie Breuer's Memory of; Love and Briffault's Europa (the latter a six' figure seller in America) We may preen ourselves on being superior. But it does , us no credit that Dreiser, a genuinely moving if often clumsy writer, and Dos Passos, who if sometimes chaotic is often Magnificent, Should fall short in sales of even the modest success of esteem we have accorded them.. As for Scott Fitzgerald, he is a writer with whose very name nine out of ten "intelligent readers" will be found quite Unfamiliar.' Yet even though This Side of Paradise may date just a trifle, The Great Gatsby will always remain a remarkable and a brilliant book. Then Virginia Lincoln's February Hill and Werfel's Forty Days of Musa Dagh must have looked like sure-fire sellers to their respective publishers: but how mistakenly! Nor did John O'Hara's Appointment in Samarra find the public it deserved, while his second novel, Butterfield 8, which from its New York, as opposed to the other's Country Club setting, might have had a more immediate appeal, has not been published in England at all. If Faulkner and Caldwell do not sell in the thousands they should,- at least they are warmly esteemed by the dis- criminating. But to neglect a gorgeous frolic like Wallace Smith's The Captain Hates the Sea is really shoeking: and as for DOrothy Parker—adjectives fail me. Public-spirited publishers have . issued her collected . poems, Not so Deep as a Well, and her two vOlumes of short stories, After Such Pleasures and Laments for the Living—the brief product of the bitterest and one of the most brilliant pens in either continent : and if the combined sales of all three have exceeded a Couple of thousand, I will eat my hat (and glad to do it).
It is recorded that Mrs. Parker and a snooty debutante were both going in to supper at a party : the debutante made elaborate way, saying sweetly "Age before beauty, Mrs. Parker." "And pearls before swine," said Mrs. Parker, sweeping in. Now, since the writings of Dorothy Parker are unquestionably pearls . . .
Previous page
