Volume VIII Part 1 (1/2)
The Works of Guy de Maupassant
Volume VIII
by Guy de Maupassant
OF ”THE NOVEL”
I do not intend in these pages to put in a plea for this little novel
On the contrary, the ideas I shall try to set forth will rather involve a criticisical analysis which I have undertaken in _Pierre et Jean_ I propose to treat of novels in general
I am not the only writer who finds his out a new book A many laudatory phrases, I invariably reatest fault of this book is that it is not, strictly speaking, a novel”
The sareatest fault of the writer who does me the honor to review me is that he is not a critic”
For what are, in fact, the essential characteristics of a critic?
It is necessary that, without preconceived notions, prejudices of ”School,” or partisanshi+p for any class of artists, he should appreciate, distinguish, and explain the onistic tendencies and thethe most varied efforts of art
Now the Critic who, after reading _Manon Lescaut_, _Paul and Virginia_, _Don Quixote_, _Les Liaisons dangereuses_, _Werther_, _Elective Affinities_ (_Wahlverwandschaften_), _Clarissa Harlowe_, _emile_, _Candide_, _Cinq-Mars_, _Rene_, _Les Trois Mousquetaires_, _Mauprat_, _Le Pere Goriot_, _La Cousine Bette_, _Coloe et le Noir_, _Mademoiselle de Maupin_, _Notre-Dame de Paris_, _Salammbo_, _Madame Bovary_, _Adolphe_, _M de Camors_, _l'assommoir_, _Sapho_, etc, still can be so bold as to write ”This or that is, or is not, a novel,” seeely akin to incompetence Such a critic commonly understands by a novel a more or less improbable narrative of adventure, elaborated after the fashi+on of a piece for the stage, in three acts, of which the first contains the exposition, the second the action, and the third the catastrophe or _denouement_
And this method of construction is perfectly admissible, but on condition that all others are accepted on equal ter of a novel, which, if we neglect, the tale must be called by another nae et le Noir_ a novel? If _Monte Christo_ is a novel, is _l'assommoir_? Can any conclusive comparison be drawn between Goethe's _Elective Affinities_, _The Three Mousqueteers_, by Dumas, Flaubert's _Madame Bovary_, _M de Camors_ by Octave Feuillet, and _Germinal_, by Zola? Which of them all is The Novel? What are these fainate? Who laid them down? And in virtue of what principle, of whose authority, and of what reasoning?
And yet, as it would appear, these critics know in some positive and indisputable hat constitutes a novel, and what distinguishes it from other tales which are not novels What this a producers themselves they are enrolled under a School, and that, like the writers of novels, they reject all hich is conceived and executed outside the pale of their esthetics An intelligent critic ought, on the contrary, to seek out everything which least rese authors as much as possible to try fresh paths
All writers, Victor Hugo as much as M Zola, have insistently claiht to coine or observe--in accordance with their individual conception of originality, and that is a specialNow the critic who assumes that ”the novel” can be defined in conformity with the ideas he has based on the novels he prefers, and that certain immutable rules of construction can be laid doill always find himself at ith the artistic temperament of a writer who introduces a new ht to be an analyst, devoid of preferences or passions; like an expert in pictures, he should simply estimate the artistic value of the object of art sub, must so far supersede his individuality as to leave him free to discover and praise books which as a e he must duly appreciate
But critics, for the most part, are only readers; whence it corounds, or compliment us without reserve or measure
The reader, who looks for no more in a book than that it should satisfy the natural tendencies of his own mind, wants the writer to respond to his predoe which appeals to his iay, licentious, ” or ”ritten”
The public as a whole is coroups, whose cry to us writers is:
”Comfort me”
”Amuse me”
”Touch h”
”Make me shudder”
”Make me weep”