The Go-Between Read Free Page B

War
the changes in the structure of society—the changes in the whole
set-up of material civilization—have been so violent and so rapid
that a realistic novel of contemporary life becomes “dated” almost
as soon as it is written. A novel about the poor or a novel about
the rich which was conscientiously true in detail of its period is
at once outmoded by, for instance, the legislation which resulted
in the Welfare State. The Welfare State has done more than change
the pattern of people’s lives. The novels that immediately preceded
it have almost become historical novels. But the reader’s
imagination can’t accept the recent changes as it accepts the
different state of affairs that exists in a historical novel. The
recent changes suggest something that is old-fashioned and
outmoded, and yet sufficiently like the present for its unlikeness
to be at once apparent. A work of art, like a dress, may be made of
the best materials, but if it is out of fashion it doesn’t give
pleasure.
      And there is another element today with which
novelists of the past did not have to contend. There is not only
change but the expectation of change. To take the most obvious
example: we have the hydrogen bomb hanging over us, threatening the
most drastic changes. To write as if it was not there, as if the
threat did not exist, would be to falsify the life of our day. But
sixty years ago these changes were neither apparent nor thought to
be pending, and in writing of the present the novelist believed he
was also writing of the future. He had the benefit of that
illusion—the illusion of stability so helpful to fiction. Now he
cannot have it: the scene is changing as he writes. But the reality
of the pre-change period is still there if he can evoke it, and if
he can endow it with “period charm,” so much the better.
      
The Go-Between
is, I suppose, a period
piece and it contains a number of anachronisms which have since
been pointed out to me. The Mermaid rose didn’t exist at that date,
nor did the statue of Sir Thomas Browne; English people didn’t take
lemon in their tea or talk about being “on top of the world.”
      How much does an anachronism matter? I think it
depends on the reader. For some readers even a slight anachronism
destroys the illusion of period which the author is trying to
create. They can no longer accept his imaginative reconstruction as
valid. Yet two of the world’s greatest novels are violently
anachronistic:
La Princess de Clèves
and
La Chartreuse
de Parme
.
      But I didn’t choose the year 1900 for its period
possibilities. I wanted to evoke the feeling of that summer, the
long stretch of fine weather, and also the confidence in life, the
belief that all’s well with the world, which everyone enjoyed or
seemed to enjoy before the First World War. No doubt those with
their ears to the ground detected creaks and rumblings in the
structure of international relations; the young Max Beerbohm,
pondering over his cartoon of the
Three Centuries
, guessed
that something was seriously wrong. But the average person didn’t;
to the average person the idea of a world war that would involve
everyone in tragedy was unthinkable. The Boer War was a local
affair, and so I was able to set my little private tragedy against
a general background of security and happiness. No novelist can do
that now; he has to remember that in most people’s lives tragedy
has been the rule, not the exception.
      Well, so much for 1900. It did have, for me, the
promise of the dawn of a Golden Age.
      A few years later I went on a visit to the home of a
school-friend, and my mother used to say that I wrote her a letter,
asking her to tell my hostess that she wanted me back. I can’t
remember doing that but I remember feeling strange and homesick
among so many people I didn’t know; and certain features of my
visit have always stuck in my memory: the double staircase stemming
from the hall, the cedar on the lawn, the cricket