The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-01-23
ARNOLD BENNETT KILLS THE JOY OF LIFE.
His Novels Exude NeutralTinted Monotony on Every
Page-With Seeming Inconsistency He Rec
ommends Everyone to Read Poetry.
~ ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

~ ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.
Not long ago the writer was talking
to a certain celebrity when Arnold
Bennett was named.
! Arnold Bennett-Arnold Bennett
go we hear about Arnold Bennett. Who
the devil is Arnold Bennett"
Such is fame
Arnold Bennett is an uncompromis.
ing realist.
And yet, strangely enough. you find
him recommending people to read po-
etry.
| He disavows this, however. In the
creation of fiction. In interviews in
this country where he recently visited
he denounces all those writer's who, in
any wise. shed over any phase Of life
glow of poetry or romance.
Who say that life may be beautiful
and exquisite as well as sordid and
ugly
Who recognize the wonder and illu-
sion of existence as we'll as the horror
and disgust.
Who say-life is something be-
sides mere animalism.
That there is rose color and fra
GRANGE as we'll as eternal greyness and
evil odors.
A reading of Benefits novels re-
suits in sort of nausea of life.
And you can't tell exactly why.
For they have misunderstanding at
times and sardonic. And there are mo-
ments of sublimated amusement
But the first impression settles on
one like a pail
Life seems fearsOme, crawling,
nightmarish obsession. A fateful DOGGY
clutching at your throat, ready to
squeeze the blood out of your veins
and mash you to pulp.
And you wonder at it the while for,
in his way, Bennett in inimitable In
imitable in the definite outlining Of
| microscopic detail. In the absolute
! and terrifying exposition of the hui
man ego.
He strips the latter bare and holds
1t up raw and quivering for inspec-
ton. And impersonally, as If one would
say:
There it is. You can't deny it. You
can't ignore it. You can't annihilate it..
1t has nothing to do with me. 1t doesn't
affect me. 1 am above. beyond, outside
its impress. You are not. Behold-it is
yourself.
In none of his novels of 1.-The Five
Towns" does Bennett SO point this as
in 1.-THE Old Wives Tale" This book
is epic in conception. It is not a record
of a section of life, but the latter in it's
entirety. Perhaps that Is one reason
it has so fateful an effect 1t shows US,
in bold perspective, the beginning,
the climax, and the end.
And this is something that we can
not stoically endure either aesthetical-
ly, spiritually or in mere materialism.
1t Is too overwhelming, too crushing,
too Illuminating.
Oh, but. someone says, this is pic
ture Of a certain phase of English
provincial life not hitherto touched
by the f1ctionist.
That is absolutely by the question.
Jane Austen wrote of provincial
life-as limited, in it's way, as those
of the characters in Arnold Benefits
novels. Charlotte Bronte treated of
provincial life, so did George Eliot. so
have a dozen other successful and
we'll known English novelists who
cannot be relegated to the unimport-
ant.
1t is not in its theme, but in it's treat
ment.
Bennett uses the same palette, the
same brush-work, the same technical
methods that distinguished Balzac.
Could the latter ever have drawn a
more pitiless picture of feminine null
lily than that of Maria insult in the
just mentioned novel?
Bennett sees life, so far as We know
it from mere human intercourse, with
a vision clear as crystal. He sees it,
in its fated hopelessness-as it no
doubt $50 far as human relations go.
He tells us the truth-that it is a ter
rible, grim. sardonic, meaningless, re-
lentless joke.
And he hammers it in. Nails it
down.
Aou AAAO" ~ 10 II uC 1Ou Cdu I kOL
away from that.
You admit it.
But
You pull away. You stretch out your
hands to that something which no man
has ever defined. 1t is that which is
in the exaltation of the
religieuse.
In the ecstasy of the poet.
In the mad ardour of the artist.