FROM THE ARCHIVES:Novelist John Broderick mused about literary fame in this review of a biography of Thomas Hardy by Irving Howe. –
JOE JOYCE
LITERARY FAME is a curious thing, quite different from the notoriety brought about by modern publicity methods. The general public does not read: it reads about events, personalities and commonplace ideas. Writers of quality live largely through the appreciation of a few, and in time their influence, often modest in their lifetime, is accepted as part of the general store of knowledge in a new generation.
Their chief asset is their personality, which if they are any good is always a highly individual one, though not always in the purely social sense. An impeccable prose, a highly developed technique will not save them from oblivion if they do not extend the boundaries of knowledge and stake their own claim to a new slice of territory, large or small, on the literary map.
They are like explorers. Sometimes they get lost in the jungle and are never heard from again. Sometimes they return and are acclaimed as heroes, bringing with them apes, ivory and peacocks to amaze the fickle mob, only to find that the market place is already crowded with other charlatans, spinning equally outrageous yarns. They would have been better employed in their own little clearing in the primeval wood, beyond the out-station, tending their own flickering fire, and waiting for civilisation to catch up with them. When it does, what does it matter if all that is left is a heap of bones? Some writers have all the personality that is needed, and possess the true pioneering spirit; but are bogged down by their weight. They never quite escape from their vesture of decay; and their reputation, when it survives, is essentially a non-literary one. Byron and Wilde are typical examples of this kind of artist. They make good subjects for biography; but their work is of secondary importance.
The prototype of the greater artist, about whose life we know little and that contradictory, and who laid a curse upon those who would move his bones, is of course Shakespeare. Jane Austen is another of this select band: and nearer to our own time, Thomas Hardy.
This has not prevented the grave-diggers from having a whack at him; but at least he has been spared the sort of attention lavished upon the drab comings and goings of an intensely secret writer like Joyce, which has resulted in such a mountain of maniacal minutiae.
Hardy’s public life was no more interesting. He remains an enigma; and a very good thing too. He has created his own world, carved out his own very English clearing, and that is all that matters.
Professor Howe is an American. This bodes no good: and I was prepared for the usual ham-handed accumulation of insignificant detail, spiced with the pepper of academic lunacy. I was disappointed. This short book has the hard bright ring of a classic.
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