{"product_id":"2940013695726","title":"The Sheltered Life","description":"Nothing, except the weather report or a general maxim of conduct,\u003cbr\u003eis so unsafe to rely upon as a theory of fiction.  Every great\u003cbr\u003enovel has broken many conventions.  The greatest of all novels\u003cbr\u003edefies every formula; and only Mr. Percy Lubbock believes that War\u003cbr\u003eand Peace would be greater if it were another and an entirely\u003cbr\u003edifferent book.  By this I do not mean to question Mr. Lubbock's\u003cbr\u003ecritical insight.  The Craft of Fiction is the best work in its\u003cbr\u003elimited field, and it may be studied to advantage by any novelist.\u003cbr\u003eIn the first chapters there is a masterly analysis of War and\u003cbr\u003ePeace.  Yet, after reading this with appreciation, I still think\u003cbr\u003ethat Tolstoy was the best judge of what his book was about and of\u003cbr\u003ehow long it should be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis brings us, in the beginning, to the most sensitive, and\u003cbr\u003etherefore the most controversial, point in the criticism of prose\u003cbr\u003efiction.  It is the habit of overworked or frugal critics to speak\u003cbr\u003eas if economy were a virtue and not a necessity.  Yet there are\u003cbr\u003efaithful readers who feel with me that a good novel cannot be too\u003cbr\u003elong or a bad novel too short.  Our company is small but picked\u003cbr\u003ewith care, and we would die upon the literary barricade defending\u003cbr\u003ethe noble proportions of War and Peace, of The Brothers Karamazov,\u003cbr\u003eof Clarissa Harlowe in eight volumes, of Tom Jones, of David\u003cbr\u003eCopperfield, of The Chronicles of Barsetshire, of A la Recherche du\u003cbr\u003eTemps Perdu, of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne.  Tennyson was with us\u003cbr\u003ewhen he said he had no criticism to make of Clarissa Harlowe except\u003cbr\u003ethat it might have been longer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe true novel (I am not concerned with the run-of-the-mill\u003cbr\u003evariety) is, like pure poetry, an act of birth, not a device or an\u003cbr\u003einvention.  It awaits its own time and has its own way to be born,\u003cbr\u003eand it cannot, by scientific methods, be pushed into the world from\u003cbr\u003ebehind.  After it is born, a separate individual, an organic\u003cbr\u003estructure, it obeys its own vital impulses.  The heart quickens;\u003cbr\u003ethe blood circulates; the pulses beat; the whole body moves in\u003cbr\u003eresponse to some inward rhythm; and in time the expanding vitality\u003cbr\u003eattains its full stature.  But until the breath of life enters a\u003cbr\u003enovel, it is as spiritless as inanimate matter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHaving said this much, I may confess that spinning theories of\u003cbr\u003efiction is my favourite amusement.  This is, I think, a good habit\u003cbr\u003eto cultivate.  The exercise encourages readiness and agility while\u003cbr\u003eit keeps both head and hand in practice.  Besides, if it did\u003cbr\u003enothing else, it would still protect one from the radio and the\u003cbr\u003emoving picture and other sleepless, if less sinister, enemies to\u003cbr\u003ethe lost mood of contemplation.  This alone would justify every\u003cbr\u003eprecept that was ever evolved.  Although a work of fiction may be\u003cbr\u003ewritten without a formula or a method, I doubt if the true novel\u003cbr\u003ehas ever been created without the long brooding season.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have read, I believe, with as much interest as if it were a novel\u003cbr\u003eitself, every treatise on the art of fiction that appeared to me to\u003cbr\u003ebe promising.  That variable branch of letters shares with\u003cbr\u003ephilosophy the favourite shelf in my library.  I know all that such\u003cbr\u003esources of learning as Sir Leslie Stephen, Sir Walter Raleigh, Mr.\u003cbr\u003ePercy Lubbock, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Mr. E. M. Forster, and\u003cbr\u003eothers less eminent but often more earnest, are able to teach me,\u003cbr\u003eor I am able to acquire.  Indeed, I know more than they can teach\u003cbr\u003eme, for I know also how very little their knowledge can help one in\u003cbr\u003ethe actual writing of novels.  If I were giving advice to a\u003cbr\u003ebeginner (but there are no beginners nowadays, there is only the\u003cbr\u003einspired amateur or the infant pathologist), I should probably say\u003cbr\u003esomething like this:  \"Learn the technique of writing, and having\u003cbr\u003elearned it thoroughly, try to forget it.  Study the principles of\u003cbr\u003econstruction, the value of continuity, the arrangement of masses,\u003cbr\u003ethe consistent point of view, the revealing episode, the careful\u003cbr\u003ehandling of detail, and the fatal pitfalls of dialogue.  Then,\u003cbr\u003ehaving mastered, if possible, every rule of thumb, dismiss it into\u003cbr\u003ethe labyrinth of the memory.  Leave it there to make its own\u003cbr\u003esignals and flash its own warnings.  The sensitive feeling, 'this\u003cbr\u003eis not right' or 'something ought to be different' will prove that\u003cbr\u003ethese signals are working.\"  Or, perhaps, this inner voice may be\u003cbr\u003eonly the sounder instinct of the born novelist.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47145824223472,"sku":"2940013695726","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013695726_p0.jpg?v=1763584501","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013695726","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}