BENNETT, WELLS AND CONRAD BENNETT, WELLS AND CONRAD Narrative in Transition Linda R. Anderson Lecturer in English University of Newcastle upon Tyne M MACMILLAN © Linda R. Anderson 1988 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988 978-0-333-31095-3 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1988 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world Typeset by Wessex Typesetters (Division of The Eastern Press Ltd) Frome, Somerset British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Anderson, Linda R. Bennett, Wells and Conrad: narrative in transition. I. Bennett, Arnold-Criticism and interpretation 2. Conrad, joseph-Criticism and interpretation 3. Wells, H. G.-Criticism and interpretation I. Title 823' .912'09 PR6003.E6Z/ ISBN 978-1-349-19151-2 ISBN 978-1-349-19149-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-19149-9 For My Parents Contents Preface IX PART I INTRODUCTION 1 Realism and Victorian Literary Culture 3 2 Realism and Narrative Form 23 PART II ARNOLD BENNETT 3 The Serious Business ofWriting 41 4 Anna of the Five Towns 63 5 The Old Wives' Tale 77 6 Clayhanger 95 PART III H. G. WELLS 7 The Modern Form of Adventure 103 8 Love and Mr Lewisham 131 9 Tono-Bungay 139 10 The History of Mr Polly 149 PART IV JOSEPH CONRAD 11 Craftsman and Seer 159 12 Heart of Darkness 176 13 Nostromo 191 Conclusion 208 Notes 211 Selected Bibliography 222 Index 228 VII Preface This book was begun as a response to the way critical discussions of the novel have frequently used the famous quarrel between Henry James and H. G. Wells to mark a decisive break in our understanding of the novel form. If before the quarrel the novel was a baggy monster, afterwards, taking up James's position, it was definitely art. I was interested in the way historical definitions of the novel were, by critical sleight of hand, transformed into evaluative ones and how it was difficult to think about Wells except from the other side of this critical debate which saw him as simply wrong. In this book I have attempted to recover a historical dimension for that quarrel through an understanding of the ideas of and the debates about fiction in the two decades from 1890 to 1910. I have focused on the work of three writers, Arnold Bennett, H. G. Wells and Joseph Conrad, all of whom began to write in the 1890s and whose major work, I believe, was done between those dates. All three writers were having to respond to a major re-definition of the idea of the novel and its relationship to reality in the period and their novels, as well as developing their specific imaginative visions, were engaged in maintaining a difficult balance between the increasingly polarised claims of society and art. Bennett, Wells and Conrad were all very different writers and I have tried not to lose a sense of the originality of each of their achievements. On the other hand I am primarily concerned with their ideas about the novel and the structures of their narratives as a response to the historical situation which they shared. Gordon Ray was the first to explore Wells's ideas about art seriously. Since then Patrick Parrinder and Robert Philmus in H. G. Wells's Literary Criticism have done much to extend our knowledge. Ian Watt in his important book, Conrad in the Nineteenth Century, has given us an absorbing account of Conrad's relationship to the period whilst John Batchelor in The Edwardian IX Preface X Novelists has helped to make the placing of Conrad together with other Edwardian writers less controversial. To all these I owe a general intellectual debt. My research for this book was initially funded by a Sir James Knott Fellowship from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. I am also grateful to the Research Committee of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne for funding which enabled me to visit libraries in the later stages. Part of the chapter on H. G. Wells, in a different form, has appeared in Modern Fiction Studies. I am grateful to Glynis Williams for her efficient typing and to Kathleen O'Rawe for her last minute help. A great many friends and colleagues have helped me in writing this book, generously sharing ideas with me. Cairns Craig, Kelsey Thornton, Rima Handley and Diana Collecott all read parts of it in draft and I am grateful for their perceptive comments. I am indebted to Judie Newman for her judicious criticisms and her general support. Sandy Anderson was a source of constant encouragement and I am grateful to him for that and much more. The author and publishers wish to thank the following who have kindly given permission for the use of copyright material: the Literary Executors of the Estate of H. G. Wells and Little, Brown and Co., for the extracts from H. G. Wells, Boon, An Englishman Looks at the World and An Experiment in Autobiography. Part I Introduction 1 Realism and Victorian Literary Culture During the last two decades of the nineteenth century the term 'realism' was used in a fairly specific way. Applied almost exclusively to French realist novelists and their English imitators it denoted a kind of fiction which had marked out the sordid and unsavoury aspects of life for attention and which dealt with them in a detached, factual manner. 'Realism', it was noted in 1888, 'means nothing short of sheer beastliness .... In a word it is dirt and horror pure and simple.'1 Emotive, denunciatory vocabulary was an important element in the definition of realism at this time, for the widespread agreement about what realism meant went along with a general alarm about its literary and moral consequences. The second half of the nineteenth century had seen an increasing invasion of English sensibilities by French realist fiction and it is interesting to watch how critical hostility was transferred from one writer to another as each succeeded in shocking English audiences afresh. Zola was considered to be the worst, however, and with the publication of the first English translation of his novels in 1884 the controversy reached a peak. Beside Zola, Balzac, who was acknowledged to be an important originator of the realist method, could be praised for his moderation: In his most outspoken passages, the former (Balzac) maintains a certain decent reserve, which the latter (Zola) and his followers - those shameless purveyors of hideous garbage - have set aside. . . . This new school has imagined the impossible. Hyenas, delighting in carrion they have lost touch with humanity; and the contrast between their corrupt imaginations and the searching analysis of Balzac is as great 3