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realized, that it indubitably exists. Yes, Mr. Garis retorts, so does the
rabbit which the conjurer pulls out of a hat-but it is the conjurer
whom one applauds. This is too neat an analogy, since in the Dickens
theater a character's behavior is at least as interesting as the mere fact
of his existence: the rabbits themselves start performing tricks.
(So,
for
that matter, do the hats: Dickensian props are notoriously alive.) But
Mr. Garis has a much more elaborate case to make out than the con–
juring simile suggests-too elaborate to summarize here, but roughly
speaking it hinges .on Dickens' in'ability to endow his characters with
inner life. The first half of this book is less a study of Dickens than a
crisp and unhackneyed discussion of first principles in fiction, and
especially of the imagin'ative sympathy which is the hallmark of the
great "non-theatrical" novelists. There is perhaps a tendency to under–
estimate the extent to which the authors whom Mr. Garis opposes to
Dickens make their idiosyncratic presence felt: a Tolstoy may achieve
something like perfect transparency, but Henry James? Jane Austen?
(It is amusing that in the very act of praising
Emma
as a consummate
dramatic-i.e., non-theatrical-illusion, Mr. Garis should
be
moved to
echo E. M. Forster and exclaim "How
this
woman can write!") How–
ever, few people will disagree that by the standards of his peers Dickens
was singularly devoid of the sympathetic imagination, and its corollary,
the power to make a character develop.
For Mr. Garis this is not to condemn, but to define.
If
we are un–
.able to take Dickens' characters seriously, it is on account of the
peculiar nature of his comic genius: his ambition is "to encompass the
world through mimicry," which is no sm'all thing. Alone among the
major novelists he frequently seems childish, but childhood has its
unique compensations: his early work in particular
has
"the self–
delighting spontaneity of play." In stressing the paramount significance
of Dickens' humor, it may look as though Mr. Garis has simply taken
the long way round to reach the traditional point of view, but his detour
is justified. In order to convince contemporary readers he has to use
more finely nuanced arguments than those of the older Dickens critics,
and counter objections of which they never dreamed.
Given his general position, it is a pity that Mr. Garis doesn't devote
more space to the early novels, where the theatricality is uncurbed. Like
the critics whom he sets out to rebut, however, he evidently finds it
easier to talk about the later work. The five novels which he studies
in
detail all belong to the second, darker half of Dickens' career. Darker,
but not necessarily deeper, for the basic artistic method is still that of
external mimicry. All that has really changed is Dickens' attitude: as he
becomes obsessed with the ways in which individual freedom is thwarted
by
the System, celebration turns to accusation. We rejoice in Pecksniffery,
