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Mar. 7th, 2011 02:35 pm“I may be very abject, but I do take an interest in the American novel,” Alfred rejoined.
“I hate such expressions: there’s no such thing as the American novel.”
“Is there by chance any such thing as the French?”
“Pas davantage – for the artist himself : how can you ask? I don’t know what is meant by French art and English art and American art: those seem to me mere cataloguers’ and reviewers’ and tradesmen’s names, representing preoccupations utterly foreign to the artist. Art is art in every country, and the novel (since Bonus mentions that) is the novel in every tongue, and hard enough work they have to live up to that privilege, without our adding another muddle to the problem. The reader, the consumer may call things as he likes, but we leave him to his little amusements.” I suggested that we were all readers and consumers; which only made Vendemer continue: “Yes, and only a small handful of us have the ghost of a palate. But you and I and Bonus are of the handful.”
“What do you mean by the handful?” Bonus inquired.
Vendemer hesitated a moment. “I mean the few intelligent people, and even the few people who are not—” He paused again an instant, long enough for me to request him not to say what they were ‘not’, and then went on: “People in a word who have the honour to live in the only country worth living in.”
“And pray what country is that?”
“The land of dreams – the country of art.”
“Oh, the land of dreams! I live in the land of realities!” Bonus exclaimed. “What do you all mean then by chattering so about le roman russe?”
“It’s a convenience – to identify the work of three or four, là-bas, because we’re so far from it. But do you see them writing ‘le roman russe’?”
“I happen to know that that’s exactly what they want to do, some of them,” said Bonus.
“Some of the idiots, then! There are plenty of those every where. Anything born under that silly star is sure not to count.”
( Read more... )
Henry James. Collaboration (1893)
“I hate such expressions: there’s no such thing as the American novel.”
“Is there by chance any such thing as the French?”
“Pas davantage – for the artist himself : how can you ask? I don’t know what is meant by French art and English art and American art: those seem to me mere cataloguers’ and reviewers’ and tradesmen’s names, representing preoccupations utterly foreign to the artist. Art is art in every country, and the novel (since Bonus mentions that) is the novel in every tongue, and hard enough work they have to live up to that privilege, without our adding another muddle to the problem. The reader, the consumer may call things as he likes, but we leave him to his little amusements.” I suggested that we were all readers and consumers; which only made Vendemer continue: “Yes, and only a small handful of us have the ghost of a palate. But you and I and Bonus are of the handful.”
“What do you mean by the handful?” Bonus inquired.
Vendemer hesitated a moment. “I mean the few intelligent people, and even the few people who are not—” He paused again an instant, long enough for me to request him not to say what they were ‘not’, and then went on: “People in a word who have the honour to live in the only country worth living in.”
“And pray what country is that?”
“The land of dreams – the country of art.”
“Oh, the land of dreams! I live in the land of realities!” Bonus exclaimed. “What do you all mean then by chattering so about le roman russe?”
“It’s a convenience – to identify the work of three or four, là-bas, because we’re so far from it. But do you see them writing ‘le roman russe’?”
“I happen to know that that’s exactly what they want to do, some of them,” said Bonus.
“Some of the idiots, then! There are plenty of those every where. Anything born under that silly star is sure not to count.”
( Read more... )
Henry James. Collaboration (1893)
