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Novels and Novelists

Words—Words—Words

Words—Words—Words

Responsibility — By James E. Agate

Mr. James Agate's new novel, ‘Responsibility,’ put us in mind of a conjurer whose performance we witnessed many years ago at a little tin theatre up country. The curtain rose upon a stage bare except for a small table. On the table there were an egg, a glass of water, a fan—and a pistol. The conjurer walked rapidly on to the stage, and without so much as a bow or a good evening, he seized the pistol and fired. This was by way of capturing our attention; our attention was caught. Whereupon, after roundly denouncing those of his profession whose intention it was to hold us in suspense and deceive us, he swore page 141 that with him there was positively no deception. What he proposed to juggle with lay upon the table plain to see—an egg, a glass of water and a fan. But ‘pray do not imagine … he for his part absolutely refused to promise … if we were fools enough to suppose …’ Away he flew into rapid, extravagant speech, never pausing for one moment, but now and again in the thick of it, when the fun was at its highest, seizing the pistol and firing a shot or two. Until suddenly—down came the curtain. Up it rolled again. There were the egg, the glass of water, and the fan, untouched, unaltered.

On page 1 of the introduction the hero of Mr. Agate's novel rushes on to the stage and seizes the pistol. On page 2 he cries: ‘I hate to hold you, sir, in suspense: a dénouement which depends upon the element of surprise is essentially a disappointment at the second reading—and who is the writer who will be content with a single taste of his quality? … So I lay my cards on the table. They consist of a sorry hero, a mistress adored and abandoned, and a son’ …

And then—away he flies through forty-four pages of introduction plentifully sprinkled with pistol shots—faster and faster, until on page 339 down comes the curtain, the performance is over, and there are the cards lying on the table—the sorry hero, the mistress adored and abandoned, the son—untouched, unaltered.

Well, what matter? Is not this soliloquy brilliant enough positively to exhaust our capacity for attending? What should we have done if, plus the pistol shots, Mr. Agate had juggled with a plot as well? Nevertheless we are left with the queer suspicion that there is some deception after all. We are not his enemies, neither are we dumbfounded and dismayed by the excessive novelty of his opinions, nor can we discover any need for him to exhort us to ‘calm yourselves, good readers.’ Why, then, does the hero think it necessary to shout so loud, to be so defiant, so sure we are bound to disagree with him, so scornful whether we do or whether we don't, so eager to page 142 shock us, so determined to stand no nonsense from us—why does he, in fine, protest so much?

This manner of his sets us wondering what it is all about—what it all amounts to. It sets us searching for the real Edward Marston without his table and his audience. If we were led to expect no more than entertainment our search would not be justified, for there are parts of ‘Responsibility’ which are entertainment of a very high order; but the author, if we read him aright, flies a great deal higher. His hero is not content to take life as it comes; he goes towards it urgently, loving, hating, wanting ‘to know a million things,’ but accepting nothing. It is never merely a question of Edward Marston living in Manchester in the 'nineties; it is the case of Edward Marston v. The Universe. It is a brave theme, but the author's treatment of it is a deal too confident to be successful. He cannot resist his hero's passion for display. And this passion is so ungoverned that we cannot see the stars for the fireworks.

(January 16, 1920.)