The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1919-11-12
CURRENT FICTION

The war has been a great awakening IN many ways, and 1t
has made current literature more virie and r~ed-blooded. Most
of the novels written since 1914 have to do with outdoor and
pioneer or primordial life. The hero may be a New York mil
Ilionaire, but he has been to Yale or Harvard, has played football
and engaged in strenuous athletic sports; has boxed and fought,
and, when necessary, can swing his right to the point of the chin
or deliver a short-arm left jab that puts an adversary down for
the count.
The heroine may be a parlor flower, but when she arrives on
the scene she receives a sudden access Of strength and courage
which enables her to put on rough, heavy boots, array herself in
= "slicker," oilskin cap and rough gloves to go down into the
gloom of a mine that challenges the courage Of the stoutest-
hearted man.
The forests of British Columbia and the untrodden ways of
Eastern Canada have been the usual places selected for the dramas,
although many are based on war and army and navy incidents.
The heroes and heroines meet and ningle with the toughest sort
of people, sailors and lumberacks, and they meet with trying ex-
Reiences, all of which they survive like true Americans, The
rifle snd the sixshooter used to be the dependence Of frontier life,
but these have been banished by the automatic" which, in cur
rent literature, is sovereign of the ascendant. The prairie, the
plains and the deserts have held their own in popularity as a
setting and groundwork for this character of fiction. The books
are really news stories written in offhand newspaper style, and
are evidently valued for their news features.
To show the alertness of the o~sprey-eyed magazine editors
it may be noted that with the battle for the heavyweight cham
~pionship, which made the whole country talk about prize fight
ing, came a flood Of stories having to do with prize fights, crooked
prize fights and straight prize fights, and fights where the best
man won, and where both promoters and fighters double-crossed
each other and everybody else, The fights were written by all
expert sporting editor, and, while imaginary, were as real and
vital to the reader as if they had actually taken place. Current
literature deals with the life Of today, and it is alive and pulsing,
1t is not literature but news, and whatever we may think of the
style in which it is written we must admit that news in modern
times that is written and published for todays consumption, while
ephemeral, has driven out the polished essay Of former years,
that was written for the delight of all times.
When the essays Of Ella or the letters OF Junius were written
news was not a commercial commodity that was hawked about
on the streets and exposed for sale on the news stands every day.
Lovable Carlos Agnus or even Emerson could find no sale
for an essay nowadays unless il could be used as padding around
advertisements in the Sunday newspapers, while a bootblack who
had witnessed a football game or a train wreck or a killing and
who could describe it in words that his fellows could understand,
would have no difficulty in disposng of his stuff at a good price.
Current magazine stories and the novels OF the time are CIV
en- the siniitude Of verify by mentioning wellknown names and
places and incidents. In this way these stories are not fiction,
but news, and news is always in demand and probably has always
been.
Long ago a certain doctor by the name OF Luke-who could
not have had much practiee-found time to accompany a travelling
preacher named Paul, and, among other places, they visited
Athens, OF this city DR. Luke left this record, Acts. l72l. Now
all the Athenians and those that were there employed themselves
IN nothing else but in either telling or hearing something new.
The gossip was the only dissemination of news at that time, but
people were anxious TO hear it. Making a news story out Of a
novel was practiced by Dickens, and all that many people know
about the geography Of London was learned from his works. He
made his stories seem real facts by using the names Of streets
and houses and other %wellknown objects.
The universal desire, which amounts to a passion. is TO see
ana near Let a circus be advertised or a parade announced and
the streets are lined and the sidewalks crowded. Women will
walk half a score of blocks carrying an infant in their arms and
with a couple OF toddlers chnging to their skirts. They want
10 see, and consider themselves defrauded il they miss anything.
civilization was so shaken and nenaced by the war that
people were thrown back on prinordial things, and primordai
virtues and vices are strongly accentuated in current fiction. which
always responds to popular interest. Love and romance. being
part OF human nature, must always be given place, but feats o.
strength and courage, fights, conflicts and deadly encounters are
numerous'y represented An access of atavism seems to have come
upon the world, causing a reversion to ancient types, when thu
strongest and most cunning were the heroes and leaders.
~ Il a healthy and a wholesome change which the war ha
brought on Prolonged peace begets elegant lassitude and a,
avoidance OF strife and these sink into moral depeneracv nh
"a acted as a healthy and a necessary cathartic, and made neonI
s"oasI' nor serious and positive, enabling them the better t.
mee 'e numerous problems OF life with vigor and force.