Both these books, therefore, in
their general lines, are pictured impressions, not actions--even
though in Bovary to some extent, and in The Ambassadors almost wholly,
the picture is itself dramatized in the fashion I have indicated. That
last effect belongs only to the final method, the treatment of the
surface; underneath it there is in both the projection of a certain
person's point of view.
But now look at the contrast in The Awkward Age, a novel in which
Henry James followed a single method throughout, from top to bottom,
denying himself the help of any other. He chose to treat this story as
pure drama; he never once draws upon the characteristic resource of
the novelist--who is able, as the dramatist is not able, to give a
generalized and foreshortened account of the matter in hand. In The
Awkward Age everything is immediate and particular; there is no
insight into anybody's thought, no survey of the scene from a height,
no resumption of the past in retrospect. The whole of the book passes
scenically before the reader, and nothing is offered but the look and
the speech of the characters on a series of chosen occasions. It might
indeed be printed as a play; whatever is not dialogue is simply a kind
of amplified stage-direction, adding to the dialogue the expressive
effect which might be given it by good acting. The novelist, using
this method, claims only one advantage over the playwright; it is the
advantage of ensuring the very best acting imaginable, a performance
in which every actor is a perfect artist and not the least point is
ever missed.
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