标题: 1919.05这是一部英国妇女的第一部小说 [打印本页] 作者: shiyi18 时间: 2022-6-17 19:15 标题: 1919.05这是一部英国妇女的第一部小说 BOOKS
Martin Schüler
By W. F.
MAY 1919 ISSUE
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By ROMER WILSON. New York: Henry Holt & Company. 1919. 12mo. iv + 313 pp. $1.50.
THIS is understood to be a first novel by an Englishwoman; and it has enough distinction to give its author an indisputable place in a group of Englishwomen whose first pieces of fiction have recently made them known to connoisseurs on both sides of the Atlantic— Rebecca West (The Return of the Soldier), Clemence Dane (Regiment of Women), E. M. Delafield (Zella Sees Herself), and Dorothy Richardson (Pilgrimage). The theme of Martin Schüler, however, sets its author somewhat apart from this group; for, whereas the others have written the tragi-comedy of limitations, mostly feminine, Homer Wilson writes of nothing less than a surprising volte-face in a man of genius. Her subject is that æsthetic equivalent of religious conversion by which a creative musician betook himself from the husks which the swine did eat—in this instance, facile and pot-boiling light operas—and returned to his father’s house, sinking the last years of his short life in the completion of a music-drama which he had first conceived as a youth. His career is traced from his earliest amateur successes in Heidelberg to the beginning of his public achievements in Leipsic; thence to his brilliant triumphs in Berlin; thence, by way of bis revolt against the cheapening of himself, to a villa in the Black Forest, where he spends the next years in a fury of creative ardor. He emerges with his magnum opus, sees it through preparation for the stage, hears the first performance, and dies on the closing cadence — as though every tissue of his body were tenaciously aware of having existed for one end only, which, when it comes, is literally the end of everything.
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What most inspires respect for this novel is the singleness with which the author focuses her attention on the complications of one kind of genius, refusing to be drawn into any other complications. The setting is Germany immediately before the war, and the personae, men and women alike, are nothing if not German. Yet Schüler’s struggle for his identity is precisely the conflict of artist against bourgeoisie, plutocracy, and himself, in any land or time, and it has less than nothing to do with any sort of patriotism or propaganda. Still more creditably, it has nothing to do with any sort of moralistic argument. Martin Schüler, gross, concupiscent, egoistic, faithless, mercenary, in some ways Teutonically obtuse, in no human way very admirable, is simply a young man who has little ability to care more than a hour at a time for anything except the fulfillment of his inexplicable need to create one special kind of beauty. This need is the beginning and the end of him. What precipitates his revolt is no fine abstraction, but the infuriating sound of a hurdy-gurdy paying its crude respects to the catchiest of his tunes, it is toward his art alone that his life is revolutionized. But mark: his art is to him what truth is to the philosopher, dialectic to the logician, law to the jurist, God to the mystic. Thus genius, now and always — but the truth about it is not too commonly told. W. F.
书籍
Martin Schüler
作者：W. F.
1919年5月号
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作者：ROMER WILSON。New York: Henry Holt & Company. 1919. 12mo. iv + 313 pp. $1.50.
据了解，这是一部英国妇女的第一部小说；它的特点足以使其作者在英国妇女群体中占有无可争议的地位，这些妇女的第一部小说最近被大西洋两岸的鉴赏家所熟知--丽贝卡-韦斯特（《士兵归来》）、克莱门斯-丹恩（《妇女团》）、E-M-德拉菲尔德（《泽拉看到她自己》）和多萝西-理查森（《朝圣》）。然而，《马丁-舒勒》的主题使其作者在某种程度上有别于这组作品；因为，其他人写的是局限性的悲喜剧，大多是女性的，而霍默-威尔逊写的却是一个天才的惊人转变。她的主题是相当于宗教皈依的审美方式，通过这种方式，一个有创造力的音乐家放弃了猪吃的壳--在这个例子中，是简单和煮沸的轻歌剧--回到了他父亲的家里，把他短暂生命中的最后几年沉浸在完成他年轻时首次构想的音乐剧中。他的职业生涯从他在海德堡最早的业余成功开始，到他在莱普西克开始取得公共成就；然后到他在柏林取得辉煌的胜利；然后，通过对贬低自己的反抗，到黑森林的一栋别墅，在那里他在创作热情的狂热中度过了几年。他带着他的巨作出现，见证了它在舞台上的准备工作，听到了第一场演出，并死在了结尾的腔调上--仿佛他身体的每个组织都顽强地意识到只为一个目的而存在，当它到来时，简直就是一切的结束。
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这部小说最令人肃然起敬的地方在于，作者将注意力集中在一种天才的复杂性上，拒绝被卷入任何其他的复杂性。小说的背景是战前的德国，小说中的人物，无论是男人还是女人，都是德国人。然而，舒勒为自己的身份所做的斗争恰恰是艺术家对资产阶级、财阀和他自己的冲突，在任何国家或时间都是如此，它与任何形式的爱国主义或宣传毫无关系。更值得称道的是，它与任何形式的道德主义争论毫无关系。马丁-舒勒，粗俗、贪婪、自私、没有信仰、唯利是图，在某些方面是日耳曼式的愚昧，在任何方面都不值得钦佩，他只是一个年轻人，除了满足他创造一种特殊的美感的莫名其妙的需要之外，几乎没有能力关心超过一个小时的事情。这种需求是他的开始和结束。引发他反抗的不是精美的抽象作品，而是那令人愤怒的手风琴声，它向他最动听的曲调表达了粗暴的敬意，他的生活仅仅是朝着他的艺术而革新。但请注意：他的艺术对他来说，就像真理对哲学家、辩证法对逻辑学家、法律对法学家、上帝对神秘主义者一样。因此，天才，现在和将来都是如此--但关于它的真相却不太被人所知。W. F.