MARY McCARTHY
If
Boccaccio is the ancestor, the "father of the modern
novel" is supposed to be Defoe, a Grub Street journalist, and
the author of
Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders,
and many
other works, including
T he Journal of the Plague Year
(not
Boccaccio's; another one-1664-1665).
Robinson Crusoe
was
based on "a real life story," of a round-the-world voyage,
which he heard described by the returned traveler and which
he supplemented by another, a written account. Not only was the
"father of the modern novel" a journalist, but he did not
dis–
tinguish, at least to
his
readers, between journalism and fiction.
All his stories pretend to be factual reports, documents, and
one perhaps is--the life of a famous criminal "as told to Daniel
Defoe," i.e., ghostwritten. This pretense, which might be called
the reverse of plagiarism, the disclaiming, that is, of author–
ship rather than the claiming of it, was not a special patho–
logical
kink
of Defoe's. The novel in its early stages almost
always purports to be true. Where a fairy tale begins, "Once
upon a time, in a certain kingdom," a tale of Boccaccio (chosen
at random) begins: "You must know that after the death of
Emperor Frederick II, the crown of Sicily passed to Manfred,
whose favor was enjoyed to the highest degree by a gentleman
of Naples, Arrighetto Capece by name, who had to wife
Madonna Beritola Caracciola, a fair and gracious lady, like–
wise a Neapolitan. Now when Manfred was conquered and
slain by King Charles I at Benevento . . . Arrighetto, etc.,
etc...." The effect of this naming and placing makes of every
story of Boccaccio's a sort of deposition, and this is even truer
when the sphere is less exalted and the place is a neighboring
village and the hero a well-known lecherous priest.
Many of the great novelists were newspaper reporters or
journalists. Dickens had been a parliamentary reporter as a
young man; in middle age, he became a magazine editor, and
the scent of a "news story"
is
keen in all his novels. Dostoevsky,
with his brother, edited two different magazines, one of which
was called
Ti'me (Vremya);
he supplied them with fiction
