The Age of Suspicion (8 page)

Behaviourist novelists, who make abundant use of dialogue, set between brief indications or discreet commentaries, extend the novel dangerously near the domain of the theatre, where it is bound to be in a position of inferiority. And renouncing the means that the novel alone has at its disposal, they also renounce what makes it a unique art, or rather, simply an art.

There remains, then, the opposite method, Proust's, or recourse to analysis. This latter one, in any case, has the advantage over the former of maintaining the novel on its own ground, and using means that only the novel affords. It also tends to furnish the reader with what he has a right to expect from a novelist; that is, experience increased not in breadth (this may be had at less cost and more effectively through documents and news reports) but in depth. And above all, it is not conducive, under the cloak of so- called renovations, to an attachment to the past, but looks frankly towards the future.

As regards dialogue in particular, Proust himself, concerning whom it is no exaggeration to say that, more than any other novelist, he excelled in the very minute, exact, subtle, highly evocative descriptions of the play of features, the glances, the slightest intonations and inflections of voice in his characters, which give the reader almost as much information as actors would with regard to the secret meaning of their words, is practically never content with simple description, and he rarely leaves the dialogue to the reader's free interpretation. He only does so, in fact, when the apparent meaning of the spoken words exactly covers the hidden meaning. Should there be the slightest discrepancy between the conversation and the sub-conversation, should they not entirely cover each other, he immediately intervenes; at times, before the character speaks, at others, as soon as he has spoken, to show all he sees, explain all he knows; and he leaves no uncertainty except that which he himself is bound to feel, in spite of all his endeavours, his privileged position, the powerful instruments of investigation he has forged.

But these countless, tiny movements, which prepare the dialogue, are for Proust, from his point of observation, what waves and eddies on a body of water are for a cartographer who is studying a region from the air; he only sees and reproduces the broad, motionless lines that these movements compose, the points at which the lines join, cross or separate; he recognises among them those that have already been explored, and designates them by their known names: jealousy, snobbishness, fear, modesty,
etc.
..;
he describes, classifies and names those he has discovered; he seeks to deduce general principles from his observations. On this vast map representing, for the most part, hardly explored regions, which he spreads out before his readers, the latter, their eyes glued to his bâton with all the attention they can summon, try their best to see clearly; and they feel rewarded for their pains every time they succeed in recognising and following visually to the very end, those frequently numerous, long lines, when, like rivers that flow into the sea, they cross, separate and mingle in the mass of the dialogue.

But by appealing to the reader's voluntary attention, to his memory, by continually calling upon his faculties of comprehension and reasoning, this method foregoes at the same time everything upon which the Behaviourists, with exaggerated optimism, founded all their hopes: which is an element of freedom, of what is inexpressible, of mystery, the direct and purely sensory contact with things, which should bring into action all the reader's instinctive faculties, the resources of his unconscious, and his divinatory powers.

Although the results obtained by the Behaviourists through appeal to these blind forces are undoubtedly much weaker than their authors are willing to believe—even in those of their works in which the implications are richest and the sub-surface indications deepest—it is nonetheless true that they exist, and that one of the virtues of a work of fiction is to allow them also to come into play.

And yet, in spite of the rather serious charges that may be brought against analysis, it is difficult to turn from it today without turning one's back on progress.

For surely it is preferable, in spite of all obstacles and possible disappointments, to try to perfect, with a view to adapting it to fresh research, an instrument which, when it will have been further perfected by new generations, will permit them to describe more convincingly, with more truth and life, new situations and sentiments, than to fall back upon devices made to seize what today is mere appearance, to tend to strengthen more and more the natural penchant we all have for effects of illusion.

It is therefore permissible to dream—without blinding ourselves to all that separates the dream from its reality—of a technique that might succeed in plunging the reader into the stream of these subterranean dramas of which Proust only had time to obtain a rapid aerial view, and concerning which he observed and reproduced nothing but the broad motionless lines. This technique would give the reader the illusion of repeating these actions himself, in a more clearly aware, more orderly, distinct and forceful manner than he can do in life, without their losing that element of indétermination, of opacity and mystery that one's own actions always have for the one who lives them.

The dialogue, which would be merely the outcome or, at times, one of the phases of these dramas, would then, quite naturally, free itself of the conventions and restraints that were made indispensable by the methods of the traditional novel. And thus, imperceptibly, through a change of rhythm or form, which would espouse and at the same time accentuate his own sensation, the reader would become aware that the action has moved from inside to outside.

The dialogue, having become vibrant and swollen with these movements that propel and subtend it, would be as revealing as theatrical dialogue, however commonplace it might seem in appearance.

All of this, of course, being merely a matter for possible research and hope.

However, these problems, which dialogue poses more and more urgently to all novelists, whether they care to recognise it or not, have been solved, up to a certain point, only in a very different way, by an English writer who is still little known in France, Ivy Compton-Burnett.

The absolutely original solution, which has both distinction and power, that she has found for them, would suffice for her to deserve the place unanimously accorded her by English critics and by a certain portion of the English reading-public: that is, of one of the greatest novelists that England has ever had.

Indeed we cannot help admiring the discernment of both critics and public who have been able to see the novelty and importance of a work which, in many respects, is disconcerting.

For nothing could be less timely than the social groups that Ivy Compton-Burnett describes (the wealthy upper middle-class and the petty English nobility during the years 1880 to 1900); nothing could be more limited than the family circle in which her characters move, nothing more outmoded than the descriptions of their physical appearance by which she introduces them, or more astonishing than the off-handedness with which she unravels her plots, according to the most conventional methods, and the monotonous obstinacy with which, during forty years of labour, and throughout twenty books, she has posed and solved in an identical manner, the same problems.

But her books have one absolutely new feature, which is that they are nothing but one long continuation of dialogues. Here again, the author presents them in the traditional manner, holding herself aloof, very ceremoniously aloof, from her characters, and limit
ing
herself as a rule, just as the Behaviourists do, to simply reproducing their words and quietly informing the reader, without trying to vary her formulas, by means of the monotonous 'said X,' said Y'.

But these dialogues, upon which everything rests, have nothing in common with the short, brisk, life-like conversations that, reduced to themselves, or accompanied by a few cursory explanations, risk reminding us more and more of the heavily circled little clouds that issue from the mouths of the figures in comic supplement drawings.

These long, stilted sentences, which are at once stiff and sinuous, do not recall any conversations we ever heard. And yet, although they seem strange, they never give an impression of being spurious or gratuitous.

The reason for this is that they are located not in an imaginary place, but in a place that actually exists: somewhere on the fluctuating frontier that separates conversation from sub-conversation. Here the inner movements, of which the dialogue is merely the outcome and as it were the furthermost point— usually prudently tipped to allow it to come up to the surface —try to extend their action into the dialogue itself. To resist their constant pressure and contain them, the conversation stiffens, becomes stilted, it adopts a cautious, slackened pace. But it is because of this pressure that it stretches and twists into long sinuous sentences. Now a close, subtle game, which is also a savage game, takes place between the conversation and the sub- conversation.

More often than not, the inside gets the better of it: something keeps cropping out, becoming manifest, disappearing then coming back again; something that continually threatens to make everything explode.

The reader, who has remained intent, on the lookout, as though he were in the shoes of the person to whom the words are directed, mobilises all his instincts of defence, all his powers of intuition, his memory, his faculties of judgement and reasoning; there is hidden danger in these sweetish sentences, murderous impulses are creeping into affectionate solicitude, an expression of tenderness suddenly distils a subtle venom.

Occasionally, ordinary conversation appears to win the day, when it suppresses the sub-conversation too deeply. Then, often just at the moment when the reader thinks he will finally be able to relax, the author suddenly abandons her silence and intervenes to warn him briefly and without explanation, that none of what has just been said is true.

But the reader is not often tempted to depart from his attitude of vigilance. He knows that here every word is of importance. The by-words, the quotations, the metaphors, the ready-made, pompous or pendantic expressions, the platitudes, vulgarities, mannerisms and pointless remarks with which these dialogues are cleverly studded are not, as they are in ordinary novels, distinctive signs that the author pins on the characters to make them more easily recognisable, more familiar and more 'alive.' They are here, one feels, what they are in reality: the resultant of numerous, entangled movements, that have come up from the depths, and which anyone perceiving them from the outside takes in at a glance, but which he has neither the time nor the means to separate and name.

No doubt this method is content to make the reader constantly suspect the existence, the complexity and the variety of the inner movements. It does not make him acquainted with them, in the way that techniques which plunged him into their depths and made him navigate through their currents, could succeed in doing. But it has at least the superiority over these latter techniques of having immediately attained to perfection. And by so doing it has succeeded in giving to traditional dialogue the worst blow it has received so far.

Quite obviously, one day in the near future, this one along with all the others, will seem incapable of describing anything but appearances. And nothing could be more cheering and more stimulating than this thought. It will be the sign that all is for the best, that life goes on, and that we must not turn back, but strive to go farther forward.

Nouvelle Revue
Française
January-February 1956.

WHAT BIRDS SEE

O
F
ALL
the interesting subjects for meditation offered us by the attitude of the public towards literary works, and especially towards the novel, certainly one of the most interesting is the admiration, the unanimous, unreserved love of this public, which, in other respects, is so divided, so fluctuating, so capricious, for acknowledged masterpieces. This does not apply, needless to say, to readers whose admiration is based in all confidence on expert opinion, but to those to whom these works appear to be so familiar that we are forced to believe in the genuine pleasure they derive from their company.

We all know what fine qualities this pleasure is generally considered to imply in those who experience it. We ought therefore to marvel. And yet we hesitate. The admirers of these works often speak of them so strangely. . . We are disconcerted by the unimportant details that seem to have struck them particularly, that they seem to have retained particularly: trifles that they could find quite as well in works devoid of all literary value—such as physical peculiarities, mannerisms, traits of disposition of certain characters, anecdotes, social customs, practical advice, tips on how to become successful, rules of conduct, etc. . . .—which remind us a bit of the following comment that Rilke tells of having heard while looking at a portrait of Cezanne's wife: 'How could he have married such a homely woman?'; or of this one overheard in front of a Van Gogh canvas: 'Poor man, you can see that he has just had his furniture seized.'

But when we think it over, there is nothing very disturbing about remarks of this sort. They should rather set our minds at rest; for they are perhaps merely the familiar and somewhat offhanded manners that denote great intimacy. This emphasis on minor detail gives us perhaps to understand that these persons consider as acknowledged and only too well known what constitutes the real importance of these works. Perhaps it is out of shyness that they refrain from speaking of what is nearest their hearts; or else there is a touch of snobbishness in it, the desire—as in the case of the character in Babbitt who said he liked Rome especially for the delicious fettucine to be had in a little trattoria on the Via della Scrofa—to appear sophisticated and blasé.

In any case, there is nothing very serious in all that, nothing that would make it worth our while, by means of indiscreet intrusions, to pry into the secrecy of the eminently respectable tête-à-tête between literary masterpieces and their readers; and we should hasten to throw over this union, which is so worthy of every encouragement, the veil of modesty, confidence and respect with which we are accustomed to invest legitimate marriage if, from time to time, there did not occur something really disquieting.