Читать книгу Why Authors Go Wrong, and Other Explanations - Grant M. Overton - Страница 4

Table of Contents

THE subject of Why Authors Go Wrong is one to answering which a book might adequately be devoted and perhaps we shall write a book about it one of these days, but not now. When, as and if written the book dealing with the question will necessarily show the misleading nature of Mr. Arnold Bennett’s title, The Truth About an Author—a readable little volume which does not tell the truth about an author in general, but only what we are politely requested to accept as the truth about Arnold Bennett. Mr. Bennett may or may not be telling the truth about himself in that book; his regard for the truth in respect of the characters of his fiction has been variable. Perhaps he is more scrupulous when it comes to himself, but we are at liberty to doubt it. For a man who will occasionally paint other persons—even fictionary persons—as worse than they really are may not unnaturally be expected to depict himself as somewhat better than he is.

We must not stay with Mr. Bennett any longer just now. It is enough that he has not been content to wait for the curtain to rise and has insisted on thrusting himself into our prologue. Exit; and let us get back where we were.

We were indicating that Why Authors Go Wrong is an extensive subject. It is so extensive because there are many authors and many, many more readers. It is extensive because it is a moral and not a literary question, a human and not an artistic problem. It is extensive because it is really unanswerable and anything that is essentially unanswerable necessitates prolonged efforts to answer it, this on the well-known theory that it is better that many be bored than that a few remain dissatisfied.