Changing My Mind_ Occasional Essays

Changing my mind : occasional essays.

by Zadie Smith.

In Memory of My Father

The time to make your mind up about people is never!

-TRACY LORD, The Philadelphia Story

You get to decide what to worship.

-DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

FOREWORD.

This book was written without my knowledge. That is, I didn"t realize I"d written it until someone pointed it out to me. I had thought I was writing a novel. Then a solemn, theoretical book about writing: Fail Better. Fail Better. The deadlines for these came and went. In the meantime, I replied to the requests that came in now and then. Two thousand words about Christmas? About Katharine Hepburn? Kafka? Liberia? A hundred thousand words piled up that way. The deadlines for these came and went. In the meantime, I replied to the requests that came in now and then. Two thousand words about Christmas? About Katharine Hepburn? Kafka? Liberia? A hundred thousand words piled up that way.

These are "occasional essays" in that they were written for particular occasions, particular editors. I am especially grateful to Bob Silvers, David Rem nick, Deborah Treisman, Cressida Leyshon, Lisa Allardice and Sarah Sands for suggesting I stray into film reviewing, obituaries, cub reporting, literary criticism and memoir. "Without whom this book would not have been written." In this case the cliche is empirically true.

When you are first published at a young age, your writing grows with you-and in public. Changing My Mind Changing My Mind seemed an apt, confessional t.i.tle to describe this process. Reading through these pieces, though, I"m forced to recognize that ideological inconsistency is, for me, practically an article of faith. As is a cautious, optimistic creed, best expressed by Saul Bellow: "There may be truths on the side of life." I keep on waiting, but I don"t think I"m going to grow out of it. seemed an apt, confessional t.i.tle to describe this process. Reading through these pieces, though, I"m forced to recognize that ideological inconsistency is, for me, practically an article of faith. As is a cautious, optimistic creed, best expressed by Saul Bellow: "There may be truths on the side of life." I keep on waiting, but I don"t think I"m going to grow out of it.

-Zadie Smith New York, 2009

One.

THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING G.o.d : : WHAT DOES SOULFUL MEAN? WHAT DOES SOULFUL MEAN?.

When I was fourteen I was given Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d by my mother. I was reluctant to read it. I knew what she meant by giving it to me, and I resented the inference. In the same spirit she had introduced me to by my mother. I was reluctant to read it. I knew what she meant by giving it to me, and I resented the inference. In the same spirit she had introduced me to Wide Sarga.s.so Sea Wide Sarga.s.so Sea and and The Bluest Eye, The Bluest Eye, and I had not liked either of them (better to say, I had not and I had not liked either of them (better to say, I had not allowed allowed myself to like either of them). I preferred my own freely chosen, heterogeneous reading list. I flattered myself I ranged widely in my reading, never choosing books for genetic or sociocultural reasons. Spotting myself to like either of them). I preferred my own freely chosen, heterogeneous reading list. I flattered myself I ranged widely in my reading, never choosing books for genetic or sociocultural reasons. Spotting Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d unopened on my bedside table, my mother persisted: unopened on my bedside table, my mother persisted: "But you"ll like it."

"Why, because she"s black black?"

"No-because it"s really good writing."

I had my own ideas of "good writing." It was a category that did not include aphoristic or overtly "lyrical" language, mythic imagery, accurately rendered "folk speech" or the love tribulations of women. My literary defenses were up in preparation for Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d. Then I read the first page: Ships at a distance have every man"s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.Now, women forget all those things they don"t want to remember, and remember everything they don"t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.

It was an aphorism, yet it had me pinned to the ground, unable to deny its strength. It capitalized Time Time (I was against the capitalization of abstract nouns), but still I found myself melancholy for these nameless men and their inevitable losses. The second part, about women, struck home. It remains as accurate a description of my mother and me as I have ever read: (I was against the capitalization of abstract nouns), but still I found myself melancholy for these nameless men and their inevitable losses. The second part, about women, struck home. It remains as accurate a description of my mother and me as I have ever read: Then they act and do things accordingly. Then they act and do things accordingly. Well, all right then. I relaxed in my chair a little and laid down my pencil. I inhaled that book. Three hours later I was finished and crying a lot, for reasons that both were, and were not, to do with the tragic finale. Well, all right then. I relaxed in my chair a little and laid down my pencil. I inhaled that book. Three hours later I was finished and crying a lot, for reasons that both were, and were not, to do with the tragic finale.

I lost many literary battles the day I read Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d. Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d. I had to concede that occasionally aphorisms have their power. I had to give up the idea that Keats had a monopoly on the lyrical: I had to concede that occasionally aphorisms have their power. I had to give up the idea that Keats had a monopoly on the lyrical: She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-nearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid.1I had to admit that mythic language is startling when it"s good:

Death, that strange being with the huge square toes who lived way in the West. The great one who lived in the straight house like a platform without sides to it, and without a roof. What need has Death for a cover, and what winds can blow against him?

My resistance to dialogue (encouraged by Nabokov, whom I idolized) struggled and then tumbled before Hurston"s ear for black colloquial speech. In the mouths of unlettered people she finds the bliss of quotidian metaphor: "If G.o.d don"t think no mo" "bout "em than Ah do, they"s a lost ball in de high gra.s.s."

Of wisdom lightly worn: "To my thinkin" mourning oughtn"t tuh last no longer"n grief."

Her conversations reveal individual personalities, accurately, swiftly, as if they had no author at all: "Where y"all come from in sich uh big haste?" Lee c.o.ker asked. "Middle Georgy," Starks answered briskly. "Joe Starks is mah name, from in and through Georgy.""You and yo" daughter goin" tuh join wid us in fellowship?" the other reclining figure asked. "Mighty glad to have yuh. Hicks is the name. Guv"nor Amos Hicks from Buford, South Carolina. Free, single, disengaged.""I G.o.d, Ah ain"t nowhere near old enough to have no grown daughter. This here is mah wife."Hicks sank back and lost interest at once."Where is de Mayor?" Starks persisted. "Ah wants tuh talk wid him him.""Youse uh mite too previous for dat," c.o.ker told him. "Us ain"t got none yit."

Above all, I had to let go of my objection to the love tribulations of women. The story of Janie"s progress through three marriages confronts the reader with the significant idea that the choice one makes between partners, between one man and another (or one woman and another) stretches beyond romance. It is, in the end, the choice between values, possibilities, futures, hopes, arguments (shared concepts that fit the world as you experience it), languages (shared words that fit the world as you believe it to be) and lives. A world you share with Logan Killicks is evidently not the same world you would share with Vergible "Tea Cake" Woods. In these two discrete worlds, you will not even think the same way; a mind trapped with Logan is freed with Tea Cake. But who, in this context, dare speak of freedoms? In practical terms, a black woman in turn-of-the-century America, a woman like Janie, or like Hurston herself, had approximately the same civil liberties as a farm animal: "De n.i.g.g.e.r woman is de mule uh de world." So goes Janie"s grandmother"s famous line-it hurt my pride to read it. It hurts Janie, too; she rejects the realpolitik of her grandmother, embarking on an existential revenge that is of the imagination and impossible to restrict: She knew that G.o.d tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making. The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off.

That part of Janie that is looking for someone (or something) that "spoke for far horizon" has its proud ancestors in Elizabeth Bennet, in Dorothea Brooke, in Jane Eyre, even-in a very debased form-in Emma Bovary. Since the beginning of fiction concerning the love tribulations of women (which is to say, since the beginning of fiction), the "romantic quest" aspect of these fictions has been too often casually ridiculed: not long ago I sat down to dinner with an American woman who told me how disappointed she had been to finally read Middlemarch Middlemarch and find that it was "Just this long, whiny, trawling search for a man!" Those who read and find that it was "Just this long, whiny, trawling search for a man!" Those who read Middlemarch Middlemarch in that way will find little in in that way will find little in Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d to please them. It"s about a girl who takes some time to find the man she really loves. It is about the discovery of self in and through another. It implies that even the dark and terrible ba.n.a.lity of racism can recede to a vanishing point when you understand, and are understood by, another human being. G.o.ddammit if it doesn"t claim that love sets you free. These days "self-actualization" is the aim, and if you can"t do it alone you are admitting a weakness. The potential rapture of human relationships to which Hurston gives unabashed expression, the profound "self-crushing love" that Janie feels for Tea Cake, may, I suppose, look like the dull finale of a "long, whiny, trawling search for a man." For Tea Cake and Janie, though, the choice of each other is experienced not as desperation, but as discovery, and the need felt on both sides causes them joy, not shame. That Tea Cake would not be to please them. It"s about a girl who takes some time to find the man she really loves. It is about the discovery of self in and through another. It implies that even the dark and terrible ba.n.a.lity of racism can recede to a vanishing point when you understand, and are understood by, another human being. G.o.ddammit if it doesn"t claim that love sets you free. These days "self-actualization" is the aim, and if you can"t do it alone you are admitting a weakness. The potential rapture of human relationships to which Hurston gives unabashed expression, the profound "self-crushing love" that Janie feels for Tea Cake, may, I suppose, look like the dull finale of a "long, whiny, trawling search for a man." For Tea Cake and Janie, though, the choice of each other is experienced not as desperation, but as discovery, and the need felt on both sides causes them joy, not shame. That Tea Cake would not be our our choice, that we disapprove of him often, and despair of him occasionally, only lends power to the portrait. He seems to act with freedom, and Janie to choose him freely. We have no power; we only watch. Despite the novel"s fairy-tale structure (as far as husbands go, third time"s the charm), it is not a novel of wish fulfillment, least of all the fulfillment of choice, that we disapprove of him often, and despair of him occasionally, only lends power to the portrait. He seems to act with freedom, and Janie to choose him freely. We have no power; we only watch. Despite the novel"s fairy-tale structure (as far as husbands go, third time"s the charm), it is not a novel of wish fulfillment, least of all the fulfillment of our our wishes. wishes.2 It is odd to diagnose weakness where lovers themselves do not feel it. It is odd to diagnose weakness where lovers themselves do not feel it.

After that first reading of the novel, I wept, and not only for Tea Cake, and not simply for the perfection of the writing, nor even the real loss I felt upon leaving the world contained in its pages. It meant something more than all that to me, something I could not, or would not, articulate. Later, I took it to the dinner table, still holding on to it, as we do sometimes with books we are not quite ready to relinquish.

"So?" my mother asked.

I told her it was basically sound.

At fourteen, I did Zora Neale Hurston a critical disservice. I feared my "extraliterary" feelings for her. I wanted to be an objective aesthete and not a sentimental fool. I disliked the idea of "identifying" with the fiction I read: I wanted to like Hurston because she represented "good writing," not because she represented me. In the two decades since, Zora Neale Hurston has gone from being a well-kept, well-loved secret among black women of my mother"s generation to an entire literary industry-biographies3 and films and Oprah and African American literature departments all pay homage to her life and films and Oprah and African American literature departments all pay homage to her life4 and work as avatars of black woman-ness. In the process, a different kind of critical disservice is being done to her, an overcompensation in the opposite direction. In and work as avatars of black woman-ness. In the process, a different kind of critical disservice is being done to her, an overcompensation in the opposite direction. In Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d, Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d, Janie is depressed by Joe Starks"s determination to idolize her: he intends to put her on a lonely pedestal before the whole town and establish a symbol (the Mayor"s Wife) in place of the woman she is. Something similar has been done to Hurston herself. She is like Janie, set on her porch-pedestal ("Ah done nearly languished tuh death up dere"), far from the people and things she really cared about, representing only the ideas and beliefs of her admirers, distorted by their gaze. In the s.p.a.ce of one volume of collected essays, we find a critic arguing that the negative criticism of Hurston"s work represents an "intellectual lynching" by black men, white men and white women; a critic dismissing Hurston"s final work with the sentence " Janie is depressed by Joe Starks"s determination to idolize her: he intends to put her on a lonely pedestal before the whole town and establish a symbol (the Mayor"s Wife) in place of the woman she is. Something similar has been done to Hurston herself. She is like Janie, set on her porch-pedestal ("Ah done nearly languished tuh death up dere"), far from the people and things she really cared about, representing only the ideas and beliefs of her admirers, distorted by their gaze. In the s.p.a.ce of one volume of collected essays, we find a critic arguing that the negative criticism of Hurston"s work represents an "intellectual lynching" by black men, white men and white women; a critic dismissing Hurston"s final work with the sentence "Seraph on the Suwanee is not even about black people, which is no crime, but is not even about black people, which is no crime, but is is about white people who are bores, which is"; and another explaining the "one great flaw" in about white people who are bores, which is"; and another explaining the "one great flaw" in Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d: Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d: Hurston"s "curious insistence" on having her main character"s tale told in the omniscient third person (instead of allowing Janie her "voice outright"). We are in a critical world of some ba.n.a.lity here, one in which most of our nineteenth-century heroines would be judged oppressed creatures, cruelly deprived of the therapeutic first-person voice. It is also a world in which what is called the "Black Female Literary Tradition" is beyond reproach: Hurston"s "curious insistence" on having her main character"s tale told in the omniscient third person (instead of allowing Janie her "voice outright"). We are in a critical world of some ba.n.a.lity here, one in which most of our nineteenth-century heroines would be judged oppressed creatures, cruelly deprived of the therapeutic first-person voice. It is also a world in which what is called the "Black Female Literary Tradition" is beyond reproach: Black women writers have consistently rejected the falsification of their Black female experience, thereby avoiding the negative stereotypes such falsification has often created in the white American female and Black male literary traditions. Unlike many of their Black male and white female peers, Black women writers have usually refused to dispense with whatever was clearly Black and/or female in their sensibilities in an effort to achieve the mythical "neutral" voice of universal art.5 Gratifying as it would be to agree that black women writers "have consistently rejected the falsification" of their experience, the honest reader knows that this is simply not the case. In place of negative falsification, we have nurtured, in the past thirty years, a new fetishization. Black female protagonists are now unerringly strong and soulful; they are s.e.xually voracious and unafraid; they take the unreal forms of earth mothers, African queens, divas, spirits of history; they process grandly through novels thick with a breed of greeting-card lyricism. They have little of the complexity, the flaws and uncertainties, depth and beauty of Janie Crawford and the novel she springs from. They are pressed into service as role models to patch over our psychic wounds; they are perfect;6 they overcompensate. The truth is, black women writers, while writing many wonderful things, they overcompensate. The truth is, black women writers, while writing many wonderful things,7 have been no more or less successful at avoiding the falsification of human experience than any other group of writers. It is not the Black Female Literary Tradition that makes Hurston great. It is Hurston herself. Zora Neale Hurston-capable of expressing human vulnerability as well as its strength, lyrical without sentiment, romantic and yet rigorous and one of the few truly eloquent writers of s.e.x-is as exceptional among black women writers as Tolstoy is among white male writers. have been no more or less successful at avoiding the falsification of human experience than any other group of writers. It is not the Black Female Literary Tradition that makes Hurston great. It is Hurston herself. Zora Neale Hurston-capable of expressing human vulnerability as well as its strength, lyrical without sentiment, romantic and yet rigorous and one of the few truly eloquent writers of s.e.x-is as exceptional among black women writers as Tolstoy is among white male writers.8 It is, however, true that Hurston rejected the "neutral universal" for her novels-she wrote unapologetically in the black-inflected dialect in which she was raised. It took bravery to do that: the result was hostility and disinterest. In 1937, black readers were embarra.s.sed by the unlettered nature of the dialogue and white readers preferred the exoticism of her anthropological writings. Who wanted to read about the poor Negroes one saw on the corner every day? Hurston"s biographers make clear that no matter what positive spin she put on it, her life was horribly difficult: she finished life working as a cleaner and died in obscurity. It is understandable that her reclaiming should be an emotive and personal journey for black readers and black critics. But still, one wants to make a neutral and solid case for her greatness, to say something more substantial than "She is my sister and I love her." As a reader, I want to claim fellowship with "good writing" without limits; to be able to say that Hurston is my sister and Baldwin is my brother, and so is Kafka my brother, and Nabokov, and Woolf my sister, and Eliot and Ozick. Like all readers, I want my limits to be drawn by my own sensibilities, not by my melanin count. These forms of criticism that make black women the privileged readers of a black woman writer go against Hurston"s own grain. She saw things otherwise: "When I set my hat at a certain angle and saunter down Seventh Avenue. . . . the cosmic Zora emerges. . . . How can can anybody deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It"s beyond me!" This is exactly right. No one should deny themselves the pleasure of Zora-of whatever color or background or gender. She"s too delightful not be shared. We all deserve to savor her neologisms ("sankled," "monstropolous," "rawbony") or to read of the effects of a bad marriage, sketched with tragic accuracy: anybody deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It"s beyond me!" This is exactly right. No one should deny themselves the pleasure of Zora-of whatever color or background or gender. She"s too delightful not be shared. We all deserve to savor her neologisms ("sankled," "monstropolous," "rawbony") or to read of the effects of a bad marriage, sketched with tragic accuracy: The years took all the fight out of Janie"s face. For a while she thought it was gone from her soul. No matter what Jody did, she said nothing. She had learned how to talk some and leave some. She was a rut in the road. Plenty of life beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels. Sometimes she stuck out into the future, imagining her life different from what it was. But mostly she lived between her hat and her heels, with her emotional disturbances like shade patterns in the woods-come and gone with the sun. She got nothing from Jody except what money could buy, and she was giving away what she didn"t value.

The visual imagination on display in Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d shares its clarity and iconicity with Christian storytelling-many scenes in the novel put one in mind of the bold-stroke ill.u.s.trations in a children"s Bible: young Janie staring at a photograph, not understanding that the black girl in the crowd is her; Joe Starks atop a dead mule"s distended belly, giving a speech; Tea Cake bitten high on his cheekbone by that rabid dog. I watched the TV footage of Hurricane Katrina with a strong sense of deja vu, thinking of Hurston"s flood rather than Noah"s: "Not the dead of sick and ailing with friends at the pillow and the feet . . . [but] the sodden and the bloated; the sudden dead, their eyes flung wide open in judgment. . . ." shares its clarity and iconicity with Christian storytelling-many scenes in the novel put one in mind of the bold-stroke ill.u.s.trations in a children"s Bible: young Janie staring at a photograph, not understanding that the black girl in the crowd is her; Joe Starks atop a dead mule"s distended belly, giving a speech; Tea Cake bitten high on his cheekbone by that rabid dog. I watched the TV footage of Hurricane Katrina with a strong sense of deja vu, thinking of Hurston"s flood rather than Noah"s: "Not the dead of sick and ailing with friends at the pillow and the feet . . . [but] the sodden and the bloated; the sudden dead, their eyes flung wide open in judgment. . . ."

Above all, Hurston is essential universal reading because she is neither self-conscious nor restricted. She was raised in the real Eatonville, Florida, an all-black town; this unique experience went some way to making Hurston the writer she was. She grew up a fully human being, unaware that she was meant to consider herself a minority, an other, an exotic or something depleted in rights, talents, desires and expectations. As an adult, away from Eatonville, she found the world was determined to do its best to remind her of her supposed inferiority, but Hurston was already made, and the metaphysical confidence she claimed for her life ("I am not tragically colored") is present, with equal, refreshing force, in her fiction. She liked to yell "Culllaaaah Struck!"9 when she entered a fancy party-almost everybody was. But Hurston herself was not. "Blackness," as she understood it and wrote about it, is as natural and inevitable and complete to her as, say, "Frenchness" is to Flaubert. It is also as complicated, as full of blessings and curses. One can be no more removed from it than from one"s arm, but it is no more the total measure of one"s being than an arm is. when she entered a fancy party-almost everybody was. But Hurston herself was not. "Blackness," as she understood it and wrote about it, is as natural and inevitable and complete to her as, say, "Frenchness" is to Flaubert. It is also as complicated, as full of blessings and curses. One can be no more removed from it than from one"s arm, but it is no more the total measure of one"s being than an arm is.

But still, after all that, there is something else to say-and the "neutral universal" of literary criticism pens me in and makes it difficult. To write critically in English is to aspire to neutrality, to the high style of, say, Lionel Trilling or Edmund Wilson. In the high style, one"s loves never seem partial or personal, or even like "loves," because white novelists are not white novelists but simply "novelists," and white characters are not white characters but simply "human," and criticism of both is not partial or personal but a matter of aesthetics. Such critics will always sound like the neutral universal, and the black women who have championed Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d in the past, and the one doing so now, will seem like black women talking about a black book. When I began this piece, it felt important to distance myself from that idea. By doing so, I misrepresent a vital aspect of my response to this book, one that is entirely personal, as any response to a novel shall be. Fact is, I in the past, and the one doing so now, will seem like black women talking about a black book. When I began this piece, it felt important to distance myself from that idea. By doing so, I misrepresent a vital aspect of my response to this book, one that is entirely personal, as any response to a novel shall be. Fact is, I am am a black woman, a black woman,10 and a slither of this book goes straight into my soul, I suspect, for that reason. And though it is, to me, a mistake to say, "Unless you are a black woman, you will never fully comprehend this novel," it is also disingenuous to claim that many black women do not respond to this book in a particularly powerful manner that would seem "extraliterary." Those aspects of and a slither of this book goes straight into my soul, I suspect, for that reason. And though it is, to me, a mistake to say, "Unless you are a black woman, you will never fully comprehend this novel," it is also disingenuous to claim that many black women do not respond to this book in a particularly powerful manner that would seem "extraliterary." Those aspects of Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d that plumb so profoundly the ancient buildup of cultural residue that is (for convenience"s sake) called "Blackness" that plumb so profoundly the ancient buildup of cultural residue that is (for convenience"s sake) called "Blackness"11 are the parts that my own "Blackness," as far as it goes, cannot help but respond to personally. At fourteen I couldn"t find words (or words I liked) for the marvelous feeling of recognition that came with these characters who had my hair, my eyes, my skin, even the ancestors of the rhythm of my speech. are the parts that my own "Blackness," as far as it goes, cannot help but respond to personally. At fourteen I couldn"t find words (or words I liked) for the marvelous feeling of recognition that came with these characters who had my hair, my eyes, my skin, even the ancestors of the rhythm of my speech.12 These forms of identification are so natural to white readers-(Of course Rabbit Angstrom is like me! Of course Madame Bovary is like me!)-that they believe themselves above personal identification, or at least believe that they are identifying only at the highest, existential levels (His soul is like my soul. He is human; I am human). White readers often believe they are colorblind. These forms of identification are so natural to white readers-(Of course Rabbit Angstrom is like me! Of course Madame Bovary is like me!)-that they believe themselves above personal identification, or at least believe that they are identifying only at the highest, existential levels (His soul is like my soul. He is human; I am human). White readers often believe they are colorblind.13 I always thought I was a colorblind reader-until I read this novel, and that ultimate cliche of black life that is inscribed in the word I always thought I was a colorblind reader-until I read this novel, and that ultimate cliche of black life that is inscribed in the word soulful soulful took on new weight and sense for me. But what does took on new weight and sense for me. But what does soulful soulful even mean? The dictionary has it this way: "expressing or appearing to express deep and often sorrowful feeling." The culturally black meaning adds several more shades of color. First shade: even mean? The dictionary has it this way: "expressing or appearing to express deep and often sorrowful feeling." The culturally black meaning adds several more shades of color. First shade: soulfulness soulfulness is sorrowful feeling transformed into something beautiful, creative and self-renewing, and-as it reaches a pitch-ecstatic. It is an alchemy of pain. In is sorrowful feeling transformed into something beautiful, creative and self-renewing, and-as it reaches a pitch-ecstatic. It is an alchemy of pain. In Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d, Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d, when the townsfolk sing for the death of the mule, this is an example of when the townsfolk sing for the death of the mule, this is an example of soulfulness soulfulness. Another shade: to be soulful is to follow and fall in line fall in line with a feeling, to go where it takes you and not to go against its grain. with a feeling, to go where it takes you and not to go against its grain.14 When young Janie takes her lead from the blossoming tree and sits on her gatepost to kiss a pa.s.sing boy, this is an example of When young Janie takes her lead from the blossoming tree and sits on her gatepost to kiss a pa.s.sing boy, this is an example of soulfulness soulfulness. A final shade: the word soulful soulful, like its Jewish cousin, schmaltz, schmaltz,15 has its roots in the digestive tract. "Soul food" is simple, flavorsome, hearty, unfussy, with spice. When Janie puts on her overalls and joyfully goes to work in the muck with Tea Cake, this is an example of has its roots in the digestive tract. "Soul food" is simple, flavorsome, hearty, unfussy, with spice. When Janie puts on her overalls and joyfully goes to work in the muck with Tea Cake, this is an example of soulfulness soulfulness.16 This is a beautiful novel about soulfulness. That it should be so is a tribute to Hurston"s skill. She makes "culture"-that slow and particular17 and artificial accretion of habit and circ.u.mstance-seem as natural and organic and beautiful as the sunrise. She allows me to indulge in what Philip Roth once called "the romance of onself," a literary value I dislike and yet, confronted with this beguiling book, cannot resist. She makes "black woman-ness" appear a real, tangible quality, an essence I can almost believe I share, however improbably, with millions of complex individuals across centuries and continents and languages and religions. . . . and artificial accretion of habit and circ.u.mstance-seem as natural and organic and beautiful as the sunrise. She allows me to indulge in what Philip Roth once called "the romance of onself," a literary value I dislike and yet, confronted with this beguiling book, cannot resist. She makes "black woman-ness" appear a real, tangible quality, an essence I can almost believe I share, however improbably, with millions of complex individuals across centuries and continents and languages and religions. . . .

Almost-but not quite. Better to say, when I"m reading this book, I believe it, with my whole soul. It allows me to say things I wouldn"t normally. Things like "She is my sister and I love her."

Two.

E . M. FORSTER, MIDDLE MANAGER.

1.

In the taxonomy of English writing, E. M. Forster is not an exotic creature. We file him under Notable English Novelist, common or garden variety. Yet there is a sense in which Forster was something of a rare bird. He was largely free of vices commonly found in novelists of his generation-what"s unusual about Forster is what he didn"t didn"t do. He didn"t lean rightward with the years or allow nostalgia to morph into misanthropy; he never knelt for the pope or queen, nor did he flirt (ideologically speaking) with Hitler, Stalin or Mao; he never believed the novel was dead or the hills alive, continued to read contemporary fiction after the age of fifty, harbored no special hatred for the generation below or above him, did not come to feel that England had gone to h.e.l.l in a handbasket, that its language was doomed, that lunatics were running the asylum or foreigners swamping the cities. do. He didn"t lean rightward with the years or allow nostalgia to morph into misanthropy; he never knelt for the pope or queen, nor did he flirt (ideologically speaking) with Hitler, Stalin or Mao; he never believed the novel was dead or the hills alive, continued to read contemporary fiction after the age of fifty, harbored no special hatred for the generation below or above him, did not come to feel that England had gone to h.e.l.l in a handbasket, that its language was doomed, that lunatics were running the asylum or foreigners swamping the cities.

Still, like all notable English novelists, he was a tricky b.u.g.g.e.r. He made a faith of personal sincerity and a career of disingenuousness. He was an Edwardian among modernists, and yet-in matters of pacifism, cla.s.s, education and race-a progressive among conservatives. Suburban and parochial, his vistas stretched far into the East. A pa.s.sionate defender of "Love, the beloved republic," he nevertheless persisted in keeping his own loves secret, long after the laws that had prohibited honesty were gone. Between the bold and the tame, the brave and the cowardly, the engaged and the complacent, Forster walked the middling line. At times-when defending his liberal humanism against fundamentalists of the right and left-that middle line was, in its quiet, Forsterish way, the most radical place to be. At other times-in the laissez-faire coziness of his literary ideas-it seemed merely the most comfortable. In a letter to Goldsworthy Lowes d.i.c.kinson, Forster lays out his casual aesthetics, casually: All I write is, to me, sentimental. A book which doesn"t leave people either happier or better than it found them, which doesn"t add some permanent treasure to the world, isn"t worth doing. . . . This is my "theory," and I maintain it"s sentimental-at all events it isn"t Flaubert"s. How can he f.a.g himself to write "Un Coeur Simple"?

To his detractors, the small, mild oeuvre of E. M. Forster is proof that when it comes to aesthetics, one really better better be f.a.gged: the zeal of the fanatic is what"s required. "E. M. Forster never gets any further than warming the teapot," thought Katherine Mansfield, a fanatic if ever there was one. "He"s a rare fine hand at that. Feel this teapot. Is it not beautifully warm? Yes, but there aint going to be no tea." There"s something middling about Forster; he is halfway to where people want him to be. Even the editors of this exhaustive collection of his broadcasts find it necessary to address the middlebrow elephant in the room with almost unseemly haste (page 9): be f.a.gged: the zeal of the fanatic is what"s required. "E. M. Forster never gets any further than warming the teapot," thought Katherine Mansfield, a fanatic if ever there was one. "He"s a rare fine hand at that. Feel this teapot. Is it not beautifully warm? Yes, but there aint going to be no tea." There"s something middling about Forster; he is halfway to where people want him to be. Even the editors of this exhaustive collection of his broadcasts find it necessary to address the middlebrow elephant in the room with almost unseemly haste (page 9): Forster, though recognized as a central player in his literary milieu, has been cla.s.sed by most cultural historians of this period as secondary to Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, or TS Eliot . . . relegated not quite to the lesser lights of modernism, but perhaps to the "middle lights," if we might invent this term.18 Conscientious editors, they defend their subject fiercely and at length. It feels incongruous, for never was there a notable English novelist who wore his status more lightly. To love Forster is to reconcile oneself to the admixture of ba.n.a.lity and brilliance that was his, as he had done himself. In this volume that blend is perhaps more perfectly represented than ever before. Whether that"s a good thing or not is difficult to say. At any rate, what we have here is a four-hundred-page selection of the talks Forster delivered over the wireless. The great majority of them were about books (he t.i.tled the series Some Books Some Books); a quarter of them concern-and were broadcast to-India and its people. Scattered among the remainder is a miscellaneous hodgepodge of topics that tickled Forster"s fancy: the Great Frost of 1929, the music of Benjamin Britten, the free wartime concerts given in the National Gallery, and so on. The tone is resolutely conversational, frothy and without academic pretension ("Now you have to be cool over Yeats. He was a great poet, he lived poetry, but there was an element of bunk.u.m in him." "What is the use of Art? There"s a nasty one"), the sort of thing one can imagine made T. S. Eliot-also broadcasting for the BBC during this period-sigh wearily as he pa.s.sed Forster"s recording booth on the way to his own. Eliot was very serious about literary criticism; Forster could be, too, but in these broadcasts he is not, at least not in any sense Eliot would recognize. For one thing, he won"t call what he is doing literary criticism, or even reviewing. His are "recommendations" only. Each episode ends with Forster diligently reading out the t.i.tles of the books he has dealt with, along with their exact price in pounds and shillings. In place of Eliot"s severe public intellectual we have Forster the chatty librarian, leaning over the counter, advising you on whether a book is worth the bother or not-a peculiarly English aesthetic category. It"s a self-imposed role entirely lacking in intellectual vanity ("Regard me as a parasite," he tells his audience, "savoury or unsavoury who battens on higher forms of life"), but it"s a mistake to think it a lazy or accidental one. Connection, as everyone knows, was Forster"s great theme; between people, nations, heart and head, labor and art. Radio presented him with the opportunity of ma.s.s connection. It went against his grain to put any obstacle between his listeners and himself. From the start, Forster"s concern-to use the parlance of modern broadcasting-was where to pitch it. Essentially it was the problem of his fiction, writ large, for he was the sort to send one ma.n.u.script to Virginia Woolf, another to his good friend the policeman Bob Buckingham, and fear the literary judgment of both. On the air, as on the page, Forster was never free from the anxiety of audience. His rupture from his modernist peers happens here, in his acute conception of audience, in his inability not not to conceive of an audience. When Nora Barnacle asked her husband, "Why don"t you write sensible books that people can understand?" her husband ignored her and wrote to conceive of an audience. When Nora Barnacle asked her husband, "Why don"t you write sensible books that people can understand?" her husband ignored her and wrote Finnegans Wake Finnegans Wake. Joyce"s ideal reader was himself-that was his purity. Forster"s ideal reader was a kind of projection, and not one entirely sympathetic to him. I think of this reader as, if not definitively English, then of a type that abounds in England. Lucy Honeychurch (A Room with a View) is one of them. So are Philip Herriton (Where Angels Fear to Tread) and Henry Wilc.o.x (Howards End) and Maurice Hall (Maurice). Forster"s novels are full of people who"d think twice before borrowing a Forster novel from the library. Well-they"d want to know-is it worth the bother or not? Neither intellectuals nor philistines, they are the kind to "know what they like" and have the "courage of their convictions," though their convictions are not entirely their own and their courage mostly fear. They are capable of cruelty born of laziness, but also of an unexpected spiritual greatness born of love. The right book at the right moment might might change everything for them (Forster only gave the credence of certainty to Love). It"s worth thinking of these cautious English souls, with their various potential for greatness and shabbiness, love and spite, as Forster"s radio audience: it makes his approach comprehensible. Think of Maurice Hall and his groundskeeper lover, Alec Scudder, settled by their Bakelite radio waiting for the latest installment of change everything for them (Forster only gave the credence of certainty to Love). It"s worth thinking of these cautious English souls, with their various potential for greatness and shabbiness, love and spite, as Forster"s radio audience: it makes his approach comprehensible. Think of Maurice Hall and his groundskeeper lover, Alec Scudder, settled by their Bakelite radio waiting for the latest installment of Some Books Some Books. Maurice, thanks to his superior education, catches the literary references but, in his suburban slowness, misses much of the spirit. Alec, not having read Wordsworth, yet grasps the soul of that poet as he listens to Forster recount a visit to the Lake District, Wordsworth country: "Grey sheets of rain trailed in front of the mountains, waterfalls slid down them and shone in the sun, and the sky was always sending shafts of light into the valleys." Early on, Forster voiced his determination to plow the middle course: "I"ve had nice letters from people regretting that my talks are above them, and others equally nice regretting that they are below; so hadn"t I better pursue the even tenor of my way?"

Well, hadn"t he?

2.

I"ve made up an imaginary person whom I call "you" and I"m going to tell you about it. Your age, your s.e.x, your position, your job, your training-I know nothing about all that, but I have formed the notion that you"re a person who wants to read new books but doesn"t intend to buy them. I"ve made up an imaginary person whom I call "you" and I"m going to tell you about it. Your age, your s.e.x, your position, your job, your training-I know nothing about all that, but I have formed the notion that you"re a person who wants to read new books but doesn"t intend to buy them.

But here Forster is too humble: he knew more of his audience than the contents of their pa.s.sports. Take his talk on Coleridge of August 13, 1931. A new Collected Collected is out, it"s a nicely printed edition, costs only three shillings sixpence, and he"d like to talk to you about it. But he senses that you are already sighing, and he knows why: is out, it"s a nicely printed edition, costs only three shillings sixpence, and he"d like to talk to you about it. But he senses that you are already sighing, and he knows why: Perhaps you"ll say "I don"t want a complete Coleridge, I"ve got "The Ancient Mariner" in some anthology or other, and that"s enough. "The Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan" and perhaps the first half of "Christabel"-that"s all in Coleridge that really matters. The rest is rubbish and not even good dry rubbish, it"s moist clammy rubbish, it"s depressing." So if I tell you that there are 600 pages in this new edition, you"ll only reply "I"m sorry to hear it."Still-600 pages makes one think.

The first half of Christabel-how perfect that is, and how it makes one laugh. A mix of empathy and ventriloquism fuels the comic engines of his novels; here in the broadcasts it"s reemployed as sly technique, allowing Forster to approach the congenital anti-intellectualism of the English from an oblique angle, one that flatters them with complicity. Here he is, up to the same thing with D. H. Lawrence: Much of his work is tedious, and some of it shocks people, so that we are inclined to say: "What a pity! What a pity to go on about the subconscious and the solar plexus and maleness and femaleness and African darkness and the cosmic battle when you can write with such insight about human beings and so beautifully about flowers.

Have you had that thought? Don"t worry if you have; so has E. M. Forster. Still, it"s a mistake: You can"t say, "Let"s drop his theories and enjoy his art," because the two are one. Disbelieve his theories, if you like, but never brush them aside. . . . He resembles a natural process much more nearly than do most writers . . . and one might as well scold a flower for growing on a manure heap, or a manure heap for producing a flower.

It"s a gentle correction, but a serious one, aimed democratically at both listener and speaker. And like this, pursuing a gentle push and pull, iron fist hidden in velvet glove, Forster presses on in his determined, middling way. He"s educating you, but surrept.i.tiously, and unlike the writings of his childhood hero, Matthew Arnold, it never feels painful. The legerezza legerezza of his prose lightens every load. Speaking on the twentieth of June, 1945, Forster outlines Arnold"s more muscular approach: of his prose lightens every load. Speaking on the twentieth of June, 1945, Forster outlines Arnold"s more muscular approach: One of his complaints against his countrymen was that they were eccentric and didn"t desire to be anything else. They didn"t want to be better informed or urbane, or to know what is great in human achievement. They didn"t want culture. And he flung at them another of his famous accusations: Philistines. The philistine is the sort of person who says "I know what I know and I like what I like, and that"s the kind of chap I am." And Matthew Arnold, a Victorian David, slung his pebble bang in the middle of Goliath"s forehead.

Forster was no pebble slinger. For him, not only the means but also the aims were to be different. It really didn"t matter to Forster if a fellow had read Lawrence or not (he is consistently sentimental about the unlettered: peasants, sailors, gardeners, natives). But to deny deny Lawrence, because he was not to your taste, or to deny poetry itself, out of fear and incomprehension-that mattered terribly. The only philistinism that counted was the kind that deformed the heart, trapping us in an att.i.tude of scorn and fear until scorn and fear are all we know. On the twelfth of February 1947, recommending Lawrence, because he was not to your taste, or to deny poetry itself, out of fear and incomprehension-that mattered terribly. The only philistinism that counted was the kind that deformed the heart, trapping us in an att.i.tude of scorn and fear until scorn and fear are all we know. On the twelfth of February 1947, recommending Billy Budd, Billy Budd, Forster finds an unlikely ally in Melville: Forster finds an unlikely ally in Melville: He also shows that . . . innocence is not safe in a civilization like ours, where a man must practice a "ruled undemonstrative distrustfulness" in order to defend himself against traps. This "ruled undemonstrative distrustfulness" is not confined to business men, but exists everywhere. We all exercise it. I know I do, and I should be surprised if you, who are listening to me, didn"t. All we can do (and Melville gives us this hint) is to exercise it consciously, as Captain Vere did. It is unconscious distrustfulness that corrodes the heart and destroys the heart"s insight, and prevents it from saluting goodness.

Unconscious distrustfulness is what Lucy Honeychurch feels toward George Emerson, what Philip Herriton feels in Italy, what Maurice Hall feels for his own soul. Forster nudges his characters toward a consciousness of this weakness in themselves; they do battle against it and win. They learn to salute goodness. Sometimes this is achieved with delicacy and the illusion of freedom, as it is in A Room with a View; A Room with a View; at other times, in at other times, in Maurice, Maurice, say, happiness arrives a good deal more dogmatically (though no less pleasurably). But it is always Forster"s game by Forster"s rules. In radio, though, each man"s consciousness is his own. There are no Lucy Honeychurches to play with-only nameless, faceless listeners whose sensibilities can only be guessed at, only a.s.sumed. In the anxiety of this unfamiliar situation, a comic novelist, with his natural weakness for caricature, is apt to a.s.sume too much. The broadcasts suffer from empathic condescension: Forster is unconvinced that we might also, like him, be capable of a broad sympathetic sensibility. Recommending two memoirs, one by Sir Henry Newbolt (a patriotic, public-school adventurer with "a touch of the medieval knight about him"), and another by Mr. Grant Richards ( a "gay and irresponsible" fin de siecle journalist who "loves Paris with a fervour"), he predicts two camps of readers, split by sensibility, unable to understand each other: say, happiness arrives a good deal more dogmatically (though no less pleasurably). But it is always Forster"s game by Forster"s rules. In radio, though, each man"s consciousness is his own. There are no Lucy Honeychurches to play with-only nameless, faceless listeners whose sensibilities can only be guessed at, only a.s.sumed. In the anxiety of this unfamiliar situation, a comic novelist, with his natural weakness for caricature, is apt to a.s.sume too much. The broadcasts suffer from empathic condescension: Forster is unconvinced that we might also, like him, be capable of a broad sympathetic sensibility. Recommending two memoirs, one by Sir Henry Newbolt (a patriotic, public-school adventurer with "a touch of the medieval knight about him"), and another by Mr. Grant Richards ( a "gay and irresponsible" fin de siecle journalist who "loves Paris with a fervour"), he predicts two camps of readers, split by sensibility, unable to understand each other: Mr. Grant Richards is a very different story. The t.i.tle he has given his memoirs proves that: he calls them Memoirs of a Misspent Youth Memoirs of a Misspent Youth. . . . Like Sir Henry Newbolt he is a friend of Rothenstein and was fond of birdnest ing, but those are the only bond between them. . . . The atmosphere of the book one might call Bohemian, and if you find yourself in complete sympathy with Sir Henry Newbolt you won"t care for Memories of a Misspent Youth Memories of a Misspent Youth and vice versa. and vice versa.

There is an element of the nervous party host in Forster; he fears people won"t speak to each other unless he"s there to facilitate the introduction. Occasionally his image of the general reader is almost too general to recognize. Who dreads philosophy so much they need easing into Plato like this?

The word Plato Plato has rather a boring sound. For some reason or other "Plato" always suggests to me a man with a large head and a n.o.ble face who never stops talking and from whom it is impossible to escape. has rather a boring sound. For some reason or other "Plato" always suggests to me a man with a large head and a n.o.ble face who never stops talking and from whom it is impossible to escape.

Who"s (this) afraid of The Magic Flute The Magic Flute?It"s a lovely book,19 I implore you to read it, but rather unluckily it"s based on an opera by Mozart. I say "unluckily" not because the opera is bad, it is Mozart"s best, but because many readers of the book won"t have heard of the opera, and so won"t catch on the allusions. You"ll have to be prepared for some queer names. I implore you to read it, but rather unluckily it"s based on an opera by Mozart. I say "unluckily" not because the opera is bad, it is Mozart"s best, but because many readers of the book won"t have heard of the opera, and so won"t catch on the allusions. You"ll have to be prepared for some queer names.

No one reading these words, perhaps. On the other side of the cla.s.s and educational divide-a line that so preoccupied Forster-it"s easy to forget what it"s like not to know. Forster was always thinking of those who did not know. He worries that simply by having this one-way conversation he pushes the Alec Scudders in his audience still further into the shadows. Frequently he asks the (necessarily) rhetorical question "And what do you think?" We can be sure that Eliot, in the next booth over, never asked that. But isn"t there a point where empathy becomes equivocation? Can"t you hear Henry Wilc.o.x, fuming: "Good G.o.d, man, it"s not what I I think that matters! I"m paying my license fee to hear what think that matters! I"m paying my license fee to hear what you you think!" think!"

Henry would want a few strong opinions, the better to repeat them to his wife and pa.s.s them off as his own. Forster does have strong opinions to offer. At first glance, they seem the sort of thing of which Henry would approve: I like a novel to be a novel. I expect it to be about something or someone. . . . I get annoyed. It is foolish to get annoyed. One can cure oneself, and should. It is foolish to insist that a novel must be a novel. One must take what comes along, and see if it"s good.

But halfway through that paragraph Forster has given Henry the slip.

In the foreword to this volume, P. N. Furbank calls Forster "the great simplifier." It"s true he wrote simply, had a gift for the simple expression of complex ideas, but he never made a religion of simplicity itself. He under-stood and defended the expression of complexity in its own terms. He was E. M. Forster: he didn"t need everyone else to be like him. Which would appear the simplest, most obvious principle in the world-yet how few English novelists prove capable of holding it! In English fiction, realists defend realism and experimentalists defend experimentalism; those who write simple sentences praise the virtues of concision, and those who are fond of their adjectives claim the lyrical as the highest value in literature. Forster was different. Several times he reminds his listeners of the Bhagavad Gita Bhagavad Gita and in particular the advice Krishna gives Arjina: "But thou hast only the right to work; but none to the fruit thereof; let not then the fruit of thy action be thy motive; nor yet be thou enamoured in inaction." Forster took that advice: he could sit in his own literary corner without claiming its superiority to any other. Stubbornly he defends Joyce, though he doesn"t much like him, and Woolf, though she bemuses him, and Eliot, though he fears him. His recommendation of Paul Valery"s and in particular the advice Krishna gives Arjina: "But thou hast only the right to work; but none to the fruit thereof; let not then the fruit of thy action be thy motive; nor yet be thou enamoured in inaction." Forster took that advice: he could sit in his own literary corner without claiming its superiority to any other. Stubbornly he defends Joyce, though he doesn"t much like him, and Woolf, though she bemuses him, and Eliot, though he fears him. His recommendation of Paul Valery"s An Evening with Monsieur Teste An Evening with Monsieur Teste is representative: is representative: Well, the first line is illuminating. "La betise n"est pas mon fort." Stupidity is not my strong point. No it wasn"t. Valery was never never stupid. If he had been stupid sometimes, he would no doubt have been more in touch with the rest of us, who are stupid so frequently. That was his limitation. Remember on the other hand what limitations are ours, and how much we lose by our failure to follow the action of a superior mind.

Forster was not Valery, but he defended Valery"s right to be Valery. He understood the beauty of complexity and saluted it where he saw it. His own preference for simplicity he recognized for what it was, a preference, linked to a dream of ma.s.s connection. He placed no particular force behind it: And it"s Mister Heard"s20 sympathy that I want to stress. He doesn"t write because he is learned and clever and fanciful, although he is all these things. He writes because he knows of our troubles from within and wants to help with them. I wish he wrote more simply, because then more of us might be helped. That, really, is my only quarrel with him. sympathy that I want to stress. He doesn"t write because he is learned and clever and fanciful, although he is all these things. He writes because he knows of our troubles from within and wants to help with them. I wish he wrote more simply, because then more of us might be helped. That, really, is my only quarrel with him.

3.

Occupying "a midway position" between the aristocrat"s memoir and that of the bohemian, Forster recommends As We Are, As We Are, the memoir of Mr. E. F. Benson ("The book"s uneven-bits of it are perfunctory, but bits are awfully good"). He finds one paragraph particularly wise on "the problem of growing old" and quotes it: the memoir of Mr. E. F. Benson ("The book"s uneven-bits of it are perfunctory, but bits are awfully good"). He finds one paragraph particularly wise on "the problem of growing old" and quotes it: Unfortunately there comes to the majority of those of middle age an inelasticity not of physical muscle and sinew alone but of mental fibre. Experience has its dangers: it may bring wisdom, but it may also bring stiffness and cause hardened deposits in the mind, and its resulting inelasticity is crippling.

Is it inelasticity that drives English writers to religion (Greene, Waugh, Eliot), to an anticulture stance (Wells, K. Amis, Larkin), to the rejection of accepted modes of literary seriousness (Wodehouse, Greene)? Better, I think, to credit it to a healthy English perversity, a b.l.o.o.d.y-minded war against cliche. It"s a cliche to think liking Keats makes you cultured (Larkin and Amis defaced their college copy of The Eve of St. Agnes The Eve of St. Agnes21), a commonplace to think submission to G.o.d incompatible with intellectual vitality. Then again, it"s hard to deny that in many of these writers a calcification occurs, playful poses become rigid att.i.tudes. Forster feared the sea change. In the year Forster finished broadcasting, in the same BBC studios, Evelyn Waugh submits to an interviewer interested in his "notable rejection of life": Interviewer: Interviewer: What do you feel is your worst fault? What do you feel is your worst fault?Waugh: Irritability. Irritability.Interviewer: Irritability with your family? With strangers? Irritability with your family? With strangers?Waugh: Absolutely everything. Inanimate objects and people, animals, everything . . . Absolutely everything. Inanimate objects and people, animals, everything . . .

Forster worked hard to avoid this fate, first through natural inclination and then, later, by way of a willed enthusiasm, an openness to everything that itself skirts perilously close to ba.n.a.lity. He did not believe in the "rejection of life," not for reasons of irritability, asceticism, intellectual fastidiousness or even mystical attachments. He quotes approvingly this discussion, from The Magic Flute, The Magic Flute, between Jesus and Buddha: between Jesus and Buddha: "Lord Buddha, was your gospel true?""True and False.""What was true in it?""Selflessness and Love.""What false?""Flight from Life."

In the wartime broadcasts in particular Forster gets into life, though with difficulty: you sense in more peaceful times he would have left the public speaking to those more suited to it. Pa.s.sing H. G. Wells in the street in the early forties, Forster recalls Wells "calling after me in his squeaky voice "Still in your ivory tower?" "Still on your private roundabout?" I might have retorted, but did not think of it till now."

During the war Forster got onto his own roundabout, broadcasting mild English propaganda to India, ridiculing n.a.z.i "philosophy" from the early thirties onward, attacking the prison and police systems, defending the Third Program, speaking up for ma.s.s education, the rights of refugees, free concerts for the poor and art for the ma.s.ses. Recognizing that "humanism has its dangers; the humanist shirks responsibility, dislikes making decisions, and is sometimes a coward," he was anyway determined to hold faith with the "failed" liberal values so many of his peers now jettisoned. "Do we, in these terrible times, want to be humanists or fanatics? I have no doubt as to my own wish, I would rather be a humanist with all his faults, than a fanatic with all his virtues." Forster, an Edwardian, lived through two cataclysmic wars, watched England"s transformation from elegant playground of the fortunate few to the ma.s.s factory of everybody. And still he kept faith with the future. In the greatest of his broadcasts, "What I Believe," a much longer piece absent from this volume, he sympathizes with our natural reactionary instincts but doesn"t submit to them: "This is such a difficult moment to live in, one cannot help getting gloomy and also a bit rattled, and perhaps short-sighted." As our present crop of English novelists get a bit rattled, Forster"s example begins to look exemplary.

On Forster"s centenary, again in the same studio, another notable English novelist good-humoredly recognizes his own U-turn, motivated by gloom: Interviewer: In 1964, in an essay called "No More Parades" you said you felt that British culture was the property of some sort of exclusive club and you"d always bitterly resented that fact; I get the impression from certain things you"ve written recently that you resent the fact that it"s In 1964, in an essay called "No More Parades" you said you felt that British culture was the property of some sort of exclusive club and you"d always bitterly resented that fact; I get the impression from certain things you"ve written recently that you resent the fact that it"s not not the property of an exclusive club any longer. . . . the property of an exclusive club any longer. . . .Kingsley Amis: (laughing) That"s right, yes. . . . (laughing) That"s right, yes. . . .

But Forster was clever about even this kind of literary insincerity: "The simple view is that creation can only proceed from sincerity. But the facts don"t always bear this out. The insincere, the half sincere, may on occasion contribute." Lucky for the English that this should be so. On the third of October 1932, Forster considers a critical study of Wordsworth, a writer who, like Amis, "moved from being a Bolshie . . . to being a die-hard." The study argues that Wordsworth "had a great deal to cover up," having had an affair and an illegitimate child with a French woman, Annette Vallon, all of which he kept hidden. Back in England he made a hypocritical fetish of his own puritanism and lived "to be a respectable and intolerant old man." Something calcified in Wordsworth: he ended up hating the France he"d loved as a youth, becoming a "poet of conventional morality," more concerned with public reputation than with poetry itself. Forster too had a good deal to hide and kept it hidden; one feels in his attention to the Wordsworth story the recognition of a morality tale. It is almost as if, with the door of his private s.e.xuality firmly closed, Forster willed himself to open every window. This curious inverse effect is most noticeable in the honesty and flexibility of his criticism. On his affection for Jane Austen: "She"s English, I"m English, and my fondness for her may well be