Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-05-30
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES &. TRACEWELL.

1t Is not 90 easy as that.
In the past i've years or 30 the
stores have been loaded down with
books written entirely on this plan.
| Ninety per cent OF such novels are
failures, and deserve the oblivion which
they overtake. Eve will not say oblivion
! overtakes them.)
There is q great deal more to 1t
| than this. If writer Is to substitute
life for plot, evidently. he must know
his life, as the saying goes, and also
possess an ability at writing greater
than that possessed by the average.
A plot" in the ordinary sense, the
old-tifne sense, means to have expected
and unexpected entrances and exits.
Suspense, we were told, was to be Sc
cured through such naf1euvers. If the
reader could never be sure who was
to come through the doors, and es-
they were to appear and disappear, he
would be numbered among those kindly
critics who later would say, in all
solemnity, This Is q book you cannot
put down once you have picked it
up" etc.
The amazing thing is that novel
whose plot Is life can be so thoroughly
satisfying to a generation of readers
which were brought up, by and large,
on the superplotted stories of Charles
Reade and Wilkie Collins, to name but
two OF them. Or we might say Scott
and Dumas.
The only explanation is that life is
interesting. What is more interesting,
after all? II a novelist will give US
life, as it is lived, and as we know it
Is lved-and that is important-we
will thank him with open hearts and
minds and ready pocketbooliS.
One might think most people would
| get enough of life as they live
1t, but human beings are greedy, in
this respect, as in most others. They
want life with something added, and
that is what this type of novelist-not
q new type, exactly. and yet amazingly
who Is willing to forget the rules Of
the past.
Life with something added-what is
this something? Surely it Is not the
written. No. 1t Is merely the glamour
which we all know to be in life, but
which somehow so many miss.
The commonplace of life obscure
the CLEAN. The everyday replaces the
picturesque. The fairy tales of child
hood become the harsh realities of
middle and old age.
The real novelist, as in the case Of
young Denis Mackail, is he who per-
mits us to see, If for only few hours,
the beauty and CLEAN, the glamour
of life, as we know 1t to be, but so
often lose.
He may be either "romanticist," or
a "realist," or not exactly either. He
may write of solemn, terrible things,
or Of nothing more hectic than a
quarrel
There is not In the whole 500 pages
of THE Square Circle" for instance,
an aspect of harshness deeper than
the death of cat. yet the reader will
| find himself seeing the gleam- of life
all ever again.
He will realize, perhaps with a start,
that this is the life of everyday, the life
which is interesting despite the lack
OF wars, blaring bands and decorations
If only one has some one to stand at
elbow, as a good novelist does, and
prod one into the realization before
it is too late.
1t is with a bow, at once of pride
and humility, that this column pre-
sentS this quartet of good English
novels. They contain life, as it Is;
and this does not mean hastily Is, but
decently is.
And they hold the gleam.