The doctor looks at literature

by Joseph Collins

With the regeneration or civic orientation of Babbitt I am not concerned—that is in the field of ethics. But, as a student of literary art and craftsmanship, it seems to me the sawdust in Mr. Lewis' last doll.

To depict the display of Babbitt's consciousness as Mr. Lewis has done is to make a contribution to behaviourism, to make a psychological chart of mental activity. One may call it realism if one likes, because it narrates facts, but it is first and foremost a narrative of the activities and operation of the human mind.

“Babbitt” may be construed as the American intelligence of Mr. Lewis' generation turning on its taskmaster. All men who live by writing, and have any regard for fine art and “belles lettres,” or any ideals for which, in extremity, they might be willing to get out alone with no support from cheering multitudes and do a little dying on barricades, live and work with the Babbitt iron in their souls. Mr. Lewis probably had his full dose of it. He had been an advertising copy-writer, selling goods by his skill with a pen, to Babbitts, and for Babbitts. He had been sub-editor for a time of one of those magazines which are owned and published by Babbitts and tricked out and bedizened for a “mass circulation” of Babbitts. He hated Babbitt. When he saw the favourable opportunity he meant to turn Babbitt inside out and hold him up to scorn. But Mr. Lewis is not savage enough, and his talent is not swinging and extravagant enough, and he has not humour enough, to make him a satirist. He is a photographic artist with an incomparable capacity for the lingo of “one hundred per cent Americans.” As he gets deeper and deeper into the odious and contemptible Babbitt, he begins to be sorry for him, and at the end he is rather fond of him—faithfully telling the facts about him all the while. He pities Babbitt in Babbitt's sense of frustration by social environment and circumstances, and admires him for telling his son not to let himself be similarly frustrated.

To call such a book “an exceedingly clever satire” and its leading character “an exceedingly clever caricature” is, it seems to me, to confess unacquaintance with one's countrymen or unfamiliarity with the conventional meaning of the words “satire” and “caricature.” Such admission on the part of the distinguished educator and critic who has recently applied these terms to it is most improbable.

If a photograph of a man is caricature and a phonographic record of his internal and externalised speech constitutes satire, then “Babbitt” is what the learned professor says it is.

There is a type of novel much in evidence at present called psychological, which is reputed to depict some of the established principles of psychology. It should be called the psychoanalytic novel, and psychoanalysis is only a step-child of psychology. There are hundreds of such novels. Some of them are considered at length later. Here I shall mention only one; “The Things We Are,” by John Middleton Murry. The story is of a young man, Boston by name, who has been unfitted for the experiences of adult life by excess of maternal love—the most familiar of all the Freudian themes. The narrative is developed largely through description of successive states of mind of the subject, with only the necessary thread of story carried by recounting outward events. After the death of his mother, Boston finds himself unable to take hold of life and dogged with a sense of the futility of all things. He tries various kinds of uncongenial work as cure for the sense that life is but a worthless experience, all of which fail. Finally he retires to a suburban inn to live on his income, and there, through the kindly human contact of the innkeeper and his wife, he experiences the awakening of a latent artistic impulse for expression and narration. He finds himself believing that he could give years to becoming the patient chronicler of the suburb which has provided him such beneficial retreat. Even his small peep at community and family life gives Mr. Boston uplift and expansion, and makes more significant the greatest of the Commandments. He sends for his one London friend, a literary man, who brings with him the young woman to whom he is practically engaged. The recently released libido of Mr. Boston focusses and remains focussed upon her. He interests her and finally wins her, and the long “inhibited” Mr. Boston finds himself in “normal” love. The environment prepared him and “he effected a transformation” on Felicia—in the language of the psychoanalyst. The thesis of the story is that for this particular kind of neurotic suffering, “suppression of the libido,” cure lies in “sublimation of the libido,” best effected by art and love in this case, after work, social service, and religion have been tried and failed.

The psychology of the sick soul is a science in itself, and is known as psychotherapy. There are many sick souls in the world—far more than is suspected. Very few, comparatively, of them are confined in institutions or cloistered in religious retreats or universities. The majority of them toil to gain their daily bread. They are the chief consumers of cloudy stuff and mystic literature. The purveyors of the latter owe it to them not to deceive them about psychoanalysis. As a therapeutic measure it has not been very useful. The novelist should be careful not to give it more potentiality for righteousness than it possesses.

It is the history of panics, epidemics, revivals, and other emotional episodes that they always recur. The present generation is fated to be fed on novels embodying the Freudian theories of consciousness and personality. Like certain bottles sent out from the pharmacist, they should have a label “poison: to be used with care.” The contents properly used may be beneficial, even life saving. They may do harm, great harm. Freudianism will eventually go the way of all “isms,” but meanwhile it would be kind of May Sinclair, Harvey J. O'Higgins et al to warn their readers that their fiction is based on fiction. A man's life may be determined for him by instincts which are beyond the power of his reason to influence or direct, but it has not been proven. It is hypothesis, and application of the doctrine is inimical to the system of ethics to which we have conformed our conduct, or tried to conform it, with indifferent success, for the past nineteen hundred years.

It is often said that man will never understand his mate. There are many things he will never understand. One of them is why he is attracted by spurious jewels when he can have the genuine for the same price. Ten years ago, or thereabouts, a jewel of literature was cast before the public and was scorned. I recall but one discerning critic who estimated it justly, Mr. Harry Dounce. Yet “Bunker Bean” is one of the few really meritorious American psychological novels of the present generation. It is done with a lightness of touch worthy of Anthony Hope at his best; with an insight of motives, impulses, aspirations, and determinations equal to the creator of “Mr. Polly”; and with a knowledge of child psychology that would be creditable to Professor Watson.

There are few more vivid descriptions of the workings of the child mind than that given by Mr. Harry Leon Wilson in the account of Bunker's visit to “Granper” and “Grammer,” and the seduction of his early childhood by the shell from the sea. Dickens never portrayed infantile emotions and reactions with greater verisimilitude than Mr. Wilson when knowledge of the two inevitables of life—birth and death—came, nearly simultaneously, to Bunker's budding mind.