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Conrad by Martin Seymour-Smith
Tennyson by Michael Thorn
Smollett by Robert Giddings |
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| Review |
| "It is necessary to clarify the terminology. These
study guides are closest in spirit to the estimable Writers
and their Work series, published by Northcote House. |
| "They target A/AS-level students, undergraduates,
literature-lovers everywhere. Each has a similar format: chronology;
biography; major works; overview; bibliography. There are no
directed activities; be guided as you wish. |
| "Without encouragement (tutor, critic, syllabus?)
readers might never know what they are missing. If criticism
deflates, it also celebrates and affirms. Enthusiastic assertions
-— The Secret Agent as "artistic perfection",
Humphry Clinker as "among the finest of all English
novels" — might encourage us to taste them. Hopeful
naïvety? Perhaps, but readers are unlikely "to lose
themselves" in Tennyson's "filthy sloughs" of
oblivion. Enoch Arden, for example, sold 17,000 copies
on publication day alone. Who reads it now? Roderick Random
surged to 8,500. Have you read it? No, nor have I. Mind you,
Leavis excluded Smollett from his "great tradition"
of English fiction, so we're probably not alone. |
| "However, while each guide elucidates and celebrates
its subject's unique achievement, it avoids the negative effects
of enshrinement. The approach is Seymore-Smith's: "We must
not be sentimental, it is his own best supplies the standard
by which not to be." Thus he affirms that little Conrad
wrote "lacks some touch of genius", but acknowledges
a "major flaw" in Heart of Darkness. Even Nostromo
has "rhetorical bad habits" and "dregs of style". |
| "Equally, there is no sentimentality where biography
influences text: hypochondria, egocentricity, marriage, racism,
sex, drugs — but no rock n'roll. Often we know: the autobiographical
presence in Smollett's description of Bath. Elsewhere, we may
suspect. The virulent bluster of Locksley Hall and Tennyson's
courtship failure. The complex story of Conrad and Ford, both
literary and psychological. I enjoyed the trivia, as Tennyson
did the tobacco and booze (he lived to 87). Did you know there
is a Rue Smollet in Nice? |
| "Scholarship surfaces in various guises. Textual criticism,
in the throw-away lines ("writers disturb things —
and people") or the fuller exploration of irony, in the
cross-references and the parallels (prentice work). |
| "In feuds corner, the spats with theory-driven critics
bring breadth, balance, and waspish humour. Stings against professional
ownership of literature and "deconstructive moments"
are naughty but nice (in the original sense). Agreement can
prove equally striking. On individual books: Nostromo as "the
greatest novel of the twentieth century" (Walter Allen).
Or general questions (literature and the provincialism of time). |
| "The style of these guides has a pressure of meaning
behind it. Students should learn from that, but not the printing
slips. If art is about selection, perception and taste, then
this is it." |
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Times Educational Supplement, Jan
1996
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by Brian Slough
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