‘All I said was that Tolstoy —’
‘Do keep quiet, Books. You’ve missed the point. What I mean is that if, as a novelist, you put over something that hasn’t been put over before, you’ve done the trick. A novelist’s like a fortune-teller, who can impart certain information, but not necessarily what the reader wants to hear. It may be disagreeable or extraneous. The novelist just has to dispense it. He can’t choose.’
‘All I said was, Trappy, that personally I preferred Realism — Naturalism, if you wish — just as I’ve a taste for political content. That’s how Tolstoy came in. It’s like life.’
‘But Naturalism’s only “like” life, if the novelist himself is any good. If he isn’t any good, it doesn’t matter whether he writes naturalistically or any other way. What could be less “like” life than most of the naturalistic novels that appear? If he’s any good, it doesn’t matter if his characters talk like Disraeli’s, or incidents occur like Vautrin, smoking a cigar and dressed up as a Spanish abbé, persuades Lucien de Rubempré not to drown himself. Is Oliver Twist a failure as a novel because Oliver, a workhouse boy, always speaks with exquisite refinement? As for politics, who cares which way Trimalchio voted, or that he was a bit temperamental towards his slaves?’
‘Trappy — no, wait, let me speak — all this started by my saying that, just as masochism’s only sadism towards yourself, revolutions only reconcentrate the centre of gravity of authority, and, if you wish, of oppression. The people who feel they suffer from authority and oppression want to be authoritative and oppressive. I was just illustrating that by something or other I thought came in Tolstoy.’
‘But, Books, you said Tolstoy wrote “like” life, because he was naturalistic. I contend that his characters aren’t any more “like” — in fact aren’t as “like” — as, say, Dostoevsky’s at their craziest. Of course Tolstoy’s inordinately brilliant. In spite of all the sentimentality and moralizing, he’s never boring — at least never in one sense. The material’s inconceivably well arranged as a rule, the dialogue’s never less than convincing. The fact remains, Anna Karenin’s a glorified magazine story, a magazine story of the highest genius, but still a magazine story in that it tells the reader what he wants to hear, never what he doesn’t want to hear.’
‘Trappy, I won’t have you say that sort of thing about Tolstoy, though of course Dostoevsky’s more explicit when it comes to exhibiting the Marxist contention that any action’s justified—’
‘Do stop about Marxism, Books. Marxism has nothing to do with what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Naturalism. I’m in favour of Naturalism. I write that way myself. All I want to make clear is that it’s just a way of writing a novel like any other, just as contrived, just as selective. Do you call Hemingway’s impotent good guy naturalistic? Think what Dostoevsky would have made of him. After all, Dostoevsky did deal with an impotent good guy in love with a bitch, when he wrote The Idiot.’
Bagshaw was silenced for the moment. Trapnel was undoubtedly in an exceptionally excited state, unable to stop pouring out his views. He took a gulp of beer. The pause made comment possible.
‘We don’t know for certain that Myshkin was impotent.’
‘Myshkin was as near impotent as doesn’t matter, Nick. In any case Hemingway would never allow a hero of his to be made a fool of. To that extent he’s not naturalistic. Most forms of naturalistic happening are expressed in grotesque irrational trivialities, not tight-lipped heroisms. Hemingway’s is only one special form of Naturalism. The same goes for Scott Fitzgerald’s romantic-hearted gangster. Henry James would have done an equally good job on him in non-naturalistic terms. Most of the gangsters of the classic vintage were queer anyway. James might have delicately conveyed that as an additional complication to Gatsby’s love.’
Before literary values could be finally hammered out in a manner satisfactory to all parties, the pub closed. We moved from the table, Trapnel still talking. In the street his incoherent, distracted state of mind was much more apparent. He was certainly in a bad way. All the talk about writing, its flow not greatly different from the termination of any evening in his company, was just a question of putting off the evil hour of having to face his own personal problems. No doubt he had gone into these to some extent with Bagshaw earlier. They had then started up the politico-literary imbroglio in progress when I arrived at the pub. Now, even if nothing were said about Pamela, the problem of getting him home was posed. He was, as Bagshaw so positively believed, perfectly able to walk. There was no difficulty about that. His manner was the disturbing element. An air of dreadful nervousness had descended on him. Now that he had ceased to argue about writing, he seemed to have lost all powers of decision in other matters. He stood there shaking, as if he were afraid. This could have been the consequence of lack of proper food, drinking, pills, or the mere fact of being emotionally upset. Burton had noticed such a condition. ‘Cousin-german to sorrow is fear, or rather sister, fidus Achates, and continual companion.’ That was just how Trapnel looked, a man weighed down by sorrow and fear. Suddenly he reeled. Bagshaw stepped towards him.
‘Hold up, Trappy. You’re tight.’
That was a fatal remark. Not only did open expression of that opinion make Trapnel very indignant, it also had the effect of physically increasing, anyway for the moment, the lack of control that was overcoming him. Trapnel always hated any suggestion that limits existed to his own powers of alcoholic assimilation. Bagshaw must already have known that. The fact that his comment was true made it no more excusable, except for being equally applicable to Bagshaw himself.
‘Tight? I’m always being asked by people how it is I’m never drunk, however much I put back. They can’t make it out. I can finish a bottle of brandy at a sitting, get up sober as when I started. Drink just doesn’t have any effect on me. You don’t suppose the few halves of bitter we’ve had tonight made me drunk, Books, do you? It’s you who are a little tipsy, my boy. You’ve rather a weak head.’
He waved his stick. If the contrast had to be made, this described their capacities in reverse. Bagshaw took it well, having made the initial error by his comment.
‘Drunk or sober, we can none of us stand here all night. Shall we head for your place, Trappy?’
This suggestion had a steadying, immediately subduing effect on Trapnel. He seemed to remember suddenly all he had been trying to forget. The outward appearance of drunkenness left him at once. He might have swallowed an instant sedative. The state of utter dejection returned. He spoke to Bagshaw quietly, almost humbly.
‘Does Nicholas know what’s happened?’
‘Roughly.’
‘I’d like to be a bit clearer about what’s up.’
‘There’s been some trouble with Pam. It was all over my new book. We never seem to agree about writing, especially my writing. It’s almost as if she hates it, doesn’t want me to do it, and yet she thinks about my work all the time, knows just where the weak places are. We have a lot of rows about it. We had one this morning. I left the house in a rage. I told her she was mad on Naturalism. That’s why the subject was on my mind. Books and I began talking about it. I’m for it too. I told her I was. I’ve told everyone, and written it. What I can’t stand is people giving it their own exclusive meaning. That’s what Pam does. She just uses it to pick on the way I write. She brings up all my own arguments against me. Then when I half agree, she takes an absolutely opposite line. It’s like Pavlov’s dogs. I think sometimes I’ll go up the wall.’
‘Why discuss your work with her?’ said Bagshawe inconsistently. ‘Tell her to get on with the washing-up.’