PARTISAN
REVIEW
83
Even from so scant a sampling it should
be
clear that the pop–
ular
male novel of the 1840's
is
distinguished not only by a common
subject matter and a shared stock of image , but also by a special
style, which, invented in French, manages to survive in German, as
well as in both British and American English. That style tends to–
ward- the breathless, the ecstatic, the rhapsodic, as
is
appropriate to
a kind of prose
in
which the cadences of emotion are always threat–
ening to break through the limits of syntax. And in some of the writ–
ers of the school, conventional marks of
p~nctuation
give way to
dashes or dots to indicate the replacement of logic by passion, as in
Reynolds, for instance.
Even while he reflected upon other things--amidst the perils which
enveloped his career, and the reminiscences of the dread deeds of
which he had been guilty-amongst the reasons which he had as–
sembled together to convince himself that the hideous countenances
at the gate did not exist in reality-there was one idea-unmixed–
definite-standing boldly out from the rest in his
imagination-that
he might be left to die of starvation!
Sometimes the full stop is replaced not by the dash but by the
exclamation points, or even double exclamation points, while para–
graphs shrink to the single exclamatory sentence. Again as in Reynolds:
A week contains a hundred and sixty-eight hours.
And he worked a hundred and nineteen hours each week!
And earned eight shillings!!,
A decimal more than three farthings an hour!!!
The intent
is
clear, in any case: to write "badly" at
all
costs,
which is to say, to choose an air of slapdash carelessness over any
pretense at polish; to prefer cliches to well-turned phrases; and to
let grammar take care of itself. Squeamish critics, both then and now,
have tended to be put off by this affectation of banality and sub–
literacy, which is, in fact, somehow functional and effective. I my–
self, writing about Lippard earlier, have fallen into that trap-–
betraying my own genuine fondness for his mad book by condescen–
sion, and thus revealing the "double standard" toward High and
Pop
art
which I find difficult to transcend. In
Love and Death in
the American Novel
(1960), where along with many observations
which seem to me valid still, I felt obliged to talk about "a slapdash
literary level considerably below that of his precedessor ..." "shame-
