THE
DUCHESS' RED SHOES
63
ciety; and lastly, some unformulated but all-reconciling conception
of the novel which permits novels of classic intention and American
novels to be, in the same sense, novels, and, in the same sense, great
novels. The truth, I would guess, is that Mr. Trilling likes novels
about society, and about the social world, better than other kinds
of novels; and he makes it clear that he wants novelists to write about
manners and the social world, presenting a thick social texture.
There is no reason to question this as a personal preference; but
it
is
erected by Mr. Trilling into a standard of judgment and a pro–
gram for the novelist, and it leads 1\11'. Trilling to suggest, indeed
almost to insist, that novels about society and the social world are
the
best
vehicles of understanding, forgiveness, and love, while othe
novels are inferior vehicles, if indeed they are capable of supportin.r:
these qualities at all. But is it, after all, true that
The Scarlet Letter.
Moby Dick
and
Huckleberry Finn
possess less understanding, forgive–
ness and love than the novels of Jane Austen (which are certainly con–
centrated on manners), or the novels of Dickens, Thackeray and
Meredith (which are presumably part of what Mr. Trilling has in
mind when he praises the nineteenth-century English novel as su–
perior to the nineteenth-century American novel)?
The Brothers Karamazov
is the best novel I ever read about
understanding, forgiveness and love. It is not, to reiterate, in any
literal sense about manners, society and the social world; nor, for
that matter, are
The Idiot
or
Crime and Punishment,
which are al–
most as good, and which are of permanent interest to all human
beings not because they present the observation of the manners of
a given society (or make essential use of such observation), but be–
cause they are about the innermost depths of all human beings.
Mr. Trilling is often difficult to understand because he
is
so
sensitive to all points of view, so conscious of others and of opposition,
so active and ingenious at formulating his own view in such a way
that it does not seem to disturb but rather to accommodate and
assimilate itself to other points of views. And his critical method and
style are an admirable expression of this sensitive attitude. Mr. Trill–
ing
is not using literature as a springboard toward sentiments and
ideas about society. He is not using ideas about society in order to
illuminate literature. Fundamentally (at least so far as I can make
out), Mr. Trilling is interested in the ideas and attitudes and in-
