Shadowland (Mar-Aug 1923)

Sl-IADOWLAND A" iter this preliminary disagreement concerning the nature, training for and practice of short-story writing, one arrives at the question of the stories themselves, executed with or without the assistance of paid instruction and duly published in the magazines. Why is it that these American short stories, which command such fabulous prices according to European ideas, such an enormous public and such profound reverence in this country, command none of these things to any noticeable extent in European countries? Is it jealousy of American superiority in this branch of literature? Yet the Russians, with such a short story writer as Tchekhov, have surely no need to be jealous; the French have their de Maupassant, whom even American instructors hold up to their pupils as a model of what a short-story writer should be (plus a little "uplift,"' of course, of which poor de Maupassant had none) ; and the English have their Kipling, also used as a model for American literary aspirants, and one well worth studying, for at one time did not American magazine editors offer. him as much as a dollar a word for his tales? In any case, there is a very firm conviction amongst Americans that they excel all other races in the writing of the short story. Miss Jean W i c k writes in her Stories Editors Buy and Why, which was published, I believe, about two years ago : "American magazines (and this is said in no spirit of braggadocio) today carry more and better short stor-ies than do the magazines of any other countrv." Yet Mr. E. J. O'Brien, commonly regarded as the first authority on short stories in the United States, in his last annual merit list, gives the first place to the Dial, as having during 1922 published one hundred per cent admirable stories, and second place to the new magazine, World Fiction, as having in its very short existence attained to ninety-five per cent of excellence. Now, the stories published in World Fiction are practically without exception translations of foreign stories, countries as remote as Iceland, Algeria and Roumania being drawn upon to supply material. It would seem as if considerable discrepancy of opinion as to what constitutes a good story exists between Mr. O'Brien on the one hand, and that body of critics who loudly proclaim the absolute preeminence of the American short story on the other. Were there agreement on the point, Mr. O'Brien could not possibly have considered the stories of World Fiction to be of any literary value, these stories differing so widely in theme, style, manner and treatment from American stories as to have practically nothing whatever in common with them. Mr. O'Brien is, however, a man whose opinions concerning the short story are widely deferred to, and he can, no doubt, if he has not already done so, give excellent reason"; for his approval of the stories which have appeared in World Fiction. When a foreigner picks up a book the flippant smartness of many of is to recoi In considering short stories there are two qualities that the average educated European reader most strongly and insistently calls for: sincerity and charm. Some, no doubt, will even place charm of literary manner first (hence the great vogue of Pierre Loti, for example, whose matter is of the slightest, but whose manner is of an almost uncanny fascination). But all will demand at least a modicum of it. Therefore, when a foreigner picks up a book of American short stories, and, beginning to read, is met with such an opening passage as "Momma was sick, right sick. Momma was awful sick ! Momma looked like she was going to die any minute. And she didn't care if she did. She up and as good as told Poppa that," his instinct is to recoil in dismay. Neither will the educated European see anything whatever to admire in the flippant "smartness,'' of such an opening as this : "When you try to do a story about three people like Sid Hahn and Mizzi Markis and Wallie Ascher, you find yourself pawing around amongst the personalities hopelessly. For the three of them are what is known in newspaper parlance as national figures. One n. f. is enough for any short story. Three would swamp a book," etc.. etc. (I should add that I have picked these openings entirely at random from a book of specially selected stories.) The probable reply to any criticism concerning the style just quoted would base its defence on the plea that since these are tales of common people, a certain unity of effect is obtained by deliberately keying the whole style of the writing to accord with the commonness of the characters. If so, this is a somewhat novel theory of the writer's craft, and one that has never been practised by the great masters, no matter how humble the characters of whom they wrote. De Maupassant wrote much of the poor and obscure, as well as of the rich and worldly, yet he never dreamed, when writing of his peasants and little shop-keepers, of there being any necessity for adopting a common style merely because he wrote of common people. Few have written more of the utterly uneducated classes than Kipling with his Tommies, yet this writer's style, tho often harsh and even brutal, is never common or foolish. But many of the American short-story writers seem to take a singular pride in adopting a style that revolts by its ugliness^ its rawness, its inanity and its utter lack of charm and distinction. One can almost hear them saying as they sit down to write : "I write about reg'lar fellers and plain folks — not pink-tea hounds or effete Europeans ; and I write in a plain style anyone can understand, and without any frills and ornaments." Crudeness, ugliness and lack of distinction can, it is true, occasionally be overlooked when utterly outweighed by the power, originality and sincerity of the story itself. Rut it would be absurd to claim that the average American (Continued on page 67) of American short stories and reads the opening paragraphs, his instinct 1 in dismay Page Fourteen