4BB
PARTISAN REVIEW
During the last fifteen years a majority of our respected novel–
ists have belonged to the third of these categories.
He had only, he told himself, to find a girl; there must be hundreds
waiting to be picked up on a Whitsun holiday, to be given a drink and
taken to dance at Sherry's and presently home, drunk and affectionate,
in the corridor carriage. That was the best way, to carry a witness
round with him. It would be no good, even if his pride had allowed
him, to go to the station now. They would be watching it for certain,
and it was always easy to kill a lonely man on a railway station. ...
Mrs. Barton Trafford had a grand time, but she did not get above
herself. It was useless indeed to ask him to a party without her; he
refused. And when she and Barton and Driffield were invited to a party
together they came together and went together. She never let him out
of her sight. Hostesses might rave; they could take it or leave it. Usually
they took it.
If
Brenda had to go to London for a day's shopping, hair-cutting
or bone-setting (a recreation she particularly enjoyed) she went on
Wednesday because the tickets on that day were half the usual price.
She left at eight in the morning and got home soon after ten at night.
She traveled third class and the carriages were often full, because other
wives on the line took advantage of the cheap fare.
His hysterical fury infected me suddenly. Stepping back I flung
the door to with a violent slam, hoping to catch his thrust-forward,
screaming face on the point of the jaw. But there was no impact. His
voice stopped like a gramophone from which the needle is lifted. Nor did
he utter another sound. As I stood there, behind the closed door, my
heart pounding with anger, I heard his light footsteps cross the landing
and begin to descend the stairs.
These four quotations are taken (as nearly at random as any
critic ever takes a quotation) from four extremely well-known novels
written by four of the most respected novelists of our tirne.* Now
it is obviously possible to make a distinction between these voices;
they are about as distinct as the different voices of real people in
a conversation. The first quotation is fluent and easy and direct;
the second is ironic; the third is flat and r ather tired, and the fourth
is quick, violent and vivid. No one of them has been chosen for any
*
1)
Brighton Rock,
by Graham Greene. 2)
Cakes and Ale,
by
Somerset
Maugham. 3)
A Handful of Dust,
by Evelyn Waugh, 4)
Mr. Morris Changes
Trains,
by Christopher Isherwood.
