Modern Trends among Story Writers

There are several ways of dividing the story into different kinds, but I believe the simplest and truest division is the one that divides them all into two kinds. In the first kind we find the stories that take people out of their own natures — that is, those which carry us away from reality: imaginative stories of love, adventure, and peril, whose heroes live in an atmosphere entirely different from the atmosphere the reader is accustomed to. The second kind consists of the stories that portray things and persons as they are in truth, or as the author imagines them in their real world. This is what we call "realism" in the art of the story.

Often we find that the stories we describe as "realistic" labor under the presence of certain characters — characters no closer to the world of truth than those we find in the imaginative, sentimental stories. Yet these stories, in spite of that, are surrounded by an air of reality that supports and strengthens them. This is usually something whose use or meaning everyone knows: it may be a factory, or a coal mine, or the huts of a shanty town, or the office of the head of a great financial concern. It is that realistic atmosphere beneath the story, in most cases, that makes the stories of this latter class meet with currency and success. Since the First World War, Britain has abounded in books of a popular cast portraying real sides of life about which the general public knew little. I mention this now because of a story that lately won the story prize, written by a new author named Tom Hanlin, and entitled "Once in Every Lifetime." It is one of the simplest and shortest of stories, for it is a truthful portrayal — indeed an artless record — of the lives of two children who lived in two neighboring houses in one of the small mining villages of Scotland. They grew up together with the thought stirring in them of marrying one another, and the story ends with each of them marrying someone else.

The story is short, and its manner of telling works strongly upon the reader; but that is not the whole reason for the success it has gained, for there is in it no touch of loftiness or grandeur, nor has the author tried to show his two protagonists, Jenny Dewar and Frank Stewart, as victims of the cruelty of circumstances or of outside forces. For all that certain external circumstances befell them and left their mark, it was a certain flaw and deficiency in each of the two protagonists — and particularly in Frank's character — that was the chief

cause of the ending they met: their marrying unhappily instead of answering the call of their two hearts. Yet the author never once sets about analyzing these flaws and deficiencies in the characters of Jenny and Frank; rather, he accepts these two characters, faults and all, and busies himself with examining the results that followed from them. In his writing he was simple, honest, far from contrivance and affectation. And this simple, truthful manner is one of the two chief reasons for the success of this story, "Once in Every Lifetime."

The inclination of English writers now, and especially of the younger authors, toward placing truthful phrasing and honesty of expression at the forefront of their aims in writing the story is growing; perhaps this goes back to the temper of the reading public, which demands this kind of writing. See, for example, how moving and free of artifice is this description written by the story's narrator of his little sweetheart and schoolmate: "We used to sit together on the same bench, using one inkwell and one eraser, and Jenny's hand and arm would often brush my hand and arm, gently and softly. I would always see her black hair falling over her delicate face and over her red dress, and I would breathe in with eagerness that deep fragrance that came from her. Often I would compare Jenny with the rest of my girl schoolmates, and I always found faults in them: their hair had faults, and their faces had faults. Jenny was the one with the splendid hair and the splendid face, and every head of hair and every face but hers had faults. When they smiled, we felt no need to look at them twice; there was nothing in them to call for care or invite attention."

Then see how harsh is that truthful description of what happened after years had passed — Jenny by then a nursemaid in service in houses, and Frank a drifting vagabond out of work — when they met by chance in the market of a far-off town. Ninety-nine out of every hundred of the stories that appeared before the war, whether realistic or imaginative, would have treated such a meeting between two old lovers as worth the world and all that is in it. True, Frank and Jenny sat down on a single bench, abashed at being in each other's presence. And Jenny spoke — but her talk was not of love; it was of the reality she saw before her. She said, without anger and without emotion: You are idle; you are out of work, and you have nothing to say for yourself. I know a good deal of the world's affairs, but this world has taught me that men get what they deserve. So do not claim that ill luck is the reason you have found no work. Many men do find work — but they find it because they want it and give it all the effort and toil they can. Frank answers her: "You are right; that is the truth of it. I am out of work because there is some defect or deficiency in my nature, while the world has no deficiency or defect in it. But that is how life goes."

"No, it does not go that way, and it never will; you must take hold of it and struggle to get what you want. If you have gotten nothing, that is because you want nothing."

But in spite of her clear-sightedness, Jenny is still ready to marry Frank; it is Frank's inertia and his lack of striving that shatter her hopes and their ambitions together. And the author is honest, realistic, and calm, above all at that charged ending.

I doubt very much whether any printing house in London would, twenty years ago, have accepted this story for the press; more likely it would have rejected it on the plea that it was no story at all. Yet today it carries off the prize for the best story, and I believe that is something of real significance in English literature.

The true stage of that story, as I have said, is the coal mines, and this is the second reason for its triumph and wide circulation. When Priestley wrote his "English Journey" some fifteen years ago, he said that if there had been in the London area even a single coal mine or two, this state of indifference to the affairs of the mines would never have existed; had that happened, the upper classes would have been drawn into this industry and would have come to know the wretched conditions from which the miners suffer at the present time.

But conditions have changed since that time, and there is no doubt that the ordinary British man now takes a growing interest in what goes on around him. A story that brings out such sides of life truthfully will be assured currency and success among the various classes of the people — especially if its style is easy and robust, its writer straining after no contrivance or show of wonders.