Delightful and trustworthy guide to twentieth century fiction

Reviewed by Prof Yasmine Gooneratne

'When does a satisfying and enjoyable book become a "classic"?' In her response to this complex question, Elizabeth Foley, Editorial Director of Vintage Classics, quoted as her own favourite the answer given by Italo Calvino, author of If on a Winter's Night a Traveller: 'A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say'.

What does a 'classic' work of fiction 'have to say'? Most dedicated readers of serious literature would affirm that it should say something of value. They would expect from a 'classic' some kind of significant statement about life and the world: a statement that would draw attention to human problems, and condemn (or applaud) certain points of view as expressed by its characters.

Additionally, for we are discussing imaginative literary fiction (and not, let us say, such texts, however influential they might have been in their time, as Hitler's Mein Kampf), the language of a 'classic' novel should not only be fresh, memorable, and suited to the purposes of the author, but capable in itself of yielding lasting pleasure to the reader. This, I would like to add, is a feature common to the diverse styles and approaches that Prof Wijesinha has dwelt upon.

Next question: Should a 'classic' novel be entirely credible? Does the reader need to believe what is being said? Such a standard cannot, of course, be applied either literally, or across the board. If it is applied literally, what are J. R. R. Tolkien (specialist in high fantasy) and Salman Rushdie (master of magic realism) doing on this list? Although, in an earlier age than ours, when the author of Gulliver's Travels expended effort in making his readers believe in the existence of his narrator, in the politics of Lilliput, and in the ludicrous vanity of that country's six-inch tall inhabitants, those readers understood perfectly well (a) that Swift was not Lemuel Gulliver, and (b) that he was using the device of exaggeration to communicate basic truths about humanity.

Difinition

Although the Oxford English Dictionary defines classics as works 'of the first class; of acknowledged excellence', Mark Twain called them books which people 'praise and don't read' and Oscar Wilde referred to them as 'bludgeons for preventing the free expression of Beauty in new forms'. Some readers would insist that the virtues of a 'classic' novel should be universally perceptible, and also universally applicable. Regardless of where and when it was written, the value of such a work should be appreciated everywhere, relevant today and tomorrow.

Obviously, then, it cannot be (like a newspaper) ephemeral, but must, on the contrary, put forward and explore themes of lasting interest. Among the pleasures offered to the passionate reader of fiction by Rajiva Wijesinha's delightful book, consequently, is the joy of recollection: recognising threads we first picked up in childhood or adolescence, or in our student days; we then have the satisfaction of 'following through' with the help of lessons learned later on in life.

A former colleague of mine at Macquarie University, who had spent many weary years in disentangling the structuralist linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure, the deconstructionist posturings of Derrida and his followers, and the Post-modernist criticism of Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes, recently - and in my opinion, wisely - switched in mid-career to the study and teaching of Children's Literature.

I say 'wisely' because I can personally imagine few happier experiences for a university teacher with a genuine love and understanding of English literature than exchanging what Adam Gopnik recently called 'the theoretical moonshine' which enveloped English departments in the 1990s, for the pleasure of following that lovely line of books written for the enjoyment of children, which stretches from the earliest years of the twentieth century to the present day.

The children's literature of the last century is surely one of Britain's cultural glories. Perhaps, we value it highly because, in contrast with the moral tales of the Victorian era, it fits with the perceptions of early childhood advanced by the scientific studies that are a feature of our own times.

Edith Nesbit (1858-1924) was the author of over 40 books for children that combined realistic, contemporary children in real-world settings with magical objects and adventures, sometimes travelling to fantastic worlds. Her first book, The Story of the Treasure Seekers (published in 1899), together with Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories and his novel Kim (1901) opened paths that many writers were to follow all the way to the end of the century: J. M. Barrie, with Peter Pan in 1904, Kenneth Grahame, with Mr Toad and his exasperated friends in The Wind in the Willows (1908), Frank Richards's tales of Billy Bunter at Greyfriars School, Richmal Crompton's creation Just William in 1922, Enid Blyton's enormous output of children's books throughout the 1940s, C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia in the 1950s, J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1960s, J. K. Rowling with Harry Potter in the more recent years.

The above mentioned is only one of the many lines of intellectual and pleasurable inquiry offered by Twentieth Century Classics, for in putting together a list of 50 writers who can be said to have claims to 'classic' status, a compiler must not only choose what is representative of the period in terms of theme and subject, but he must choose what is, in his view, the best in terms of quality.

Temperament

How and when does a satisfying and enjoyable book become a 'classic'? Every reader would have an answer to that question, whether he/she has given thought to it or not. A lot depends, of course, on the taste and temperament of the reader.

This book covers a lot of ground, and it's not surprising if only a few items on, say, a list of 50 'classic crime novels of the twentieth century' drawn up by a fan of Dorothy Sayers, or a list of 'classic humorous novels of the twentieth century' drawn up by lovers of P. G. Wodehouse and Frank Richards, would find a place in it. Or, abandoning considerations of genre, and focusing exclusively on personal enjoyment, the reader might find that Prof Wijesinha's favourite novels of the twentieth century are not his/hers, and that his/her own favourites are not represented here. Alternatively, setting personal favourites aside, in favour of books whose ideas and messages can be said to have shaped the twentieth century, the reader might end with a list very different from any or all of the above. It is usually accepted, continues Elizabeth Foley, that to be considered a classic, a book has to achieve a level of critical and popular success [which] endures for many years.

If such success is associated with the winning of major international prizes, readers and publishers unite to predict that the book is likely to establish itself as a classic. A literary prize will not only recommend the book to new readers, but confirm its reputation to the extent that it will begin to figure on reading/study lists at schools and universities.

Being adopted into the curriculum and deemed worthy of academic examination is another important facet to the idea of defining classics. There usually has to be more to these books than simply a rollicking good story - either in terms of the depth of the issues they discuss, the innovative nature of their stylistic form or the impact they have on contemporary culture.

Contemporary culture

If we attempted to determine the distinguishing features of the last century, and summarise its most important events, we would come up with some of the following: The twentieth century saw two World Wars, the inter-war years witnessing a Great Depression that caused a massive disruption to the world economy. During World War II, the use of nuclear weaponry in wartime was introduced; and with the Vietnam War, a shift took place, of world political and economic power from Europe and America to Asia. Several countries that had formerly been British colonies or dominions achieved independence: among these, notable from our point of view, were India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, and several African nations that are now members of the Commonwealth. Scientific discoveries, such as the theory of relativity and quantum physics, drastically changed the worldview of scientists.

In the field of medicine, the discovery of penicillin and other antibiotics, the development of scans and medical resonance imaging (MRI) in radiology, improved surgical techniques such as by-pass operations, laparoscopic surgery, transplant operations for kidney, heart and liver made a tremendous impact on longevity and the quality of human life.

Accelerating scientific understanding, more efficient communications, and faster transportation transformed the world in those 100 years more rapidly and widely than in any previous century. It was a century that started with horses, simple automobiles, and freighters but ended with luxury sedans, cruise ships, airliners and the space shuttle.

Horses, Western society's basic form of personal transportation for thousands of years, were replaced by automobiles and buses within the span of a few decades. These developments were made possible by the large-scale exploitation of fossil fuel resources (especially petroleum), which offered large amounts of energy in an easily portable form, but also caused widespread concerns about pollution and long-term impact on the environment. Humans explored outer space for the first time, even taking their first footsteps on the Moon.

What profound changes in human lives and moral outlook these developments imply! And yet, despite the tremendous advances in communication and transport, in electronics, and in medical science outlined above, it is probably true that the twentieth century is most notable for the sheer numbers of mass genocide and the killing of over 262 million people by government action and decree.

Government action and terrorist activity, along with international conflict and war, rather than economic or social conditions, were the driving causes of death in the twentieth century. With what part of the above, should 'classic novels' of the last century have concerned themselves?

A difficult question, not least because it could also be claimed that the greatest truths available to us may not be factual information about the world around us, but moral insights into the impulses within us, that cause us to act as we do. All this can be documented in lively form in literature, even when, as often happens, novelists write primarily to please themselves and explore personal concerns, not consciously to probe or resolve the 'issues' of their times.

There are, of course, some writers who appear to function on a radar system: they are found, half a century after they have died, or have ceased to write, to have demonstrated a prescience regarding social developments which readers find quite uncanny. Among these are George Bernard Shaw and Somerset Maugham, authors born in the mid-Victorian era, who, in the course of their long lives, stayed up to date as writers of drama and fiction, both in their choice of themes and as a recent biographer (Selina Hastings) has noted in the case of Maugham, in a sometimes startling modernity of approach. Not only does Maugham's masterly short story 'Rain' satisfy readers today in the psychological realism of its characterisation, but its success in several cinematic versions has introduced its author and his books to millions who knew nothing of either. Something very similar might be said of Shaw's play Pygmalion, and its modern incarnation as My Fair Lady.

Experience

For readers in Sri Lanka, Britain's involvement in both World Wars (and even the Vietnam War) were twentieth century phenomena that were comparatively distant from their own experience, in a way that Britain's involvement with imperial, and later colonial rule in Asia was not. For this reason, while Evelyn Waugh's satire of war-time Britain in Decline and Fall might conceivably miss its mark with readers here, Prof Wijesinha's brief yet trenchant studies of Kipling's Kim, Forster's A Passage to India, Scott's Raj Quartet, Jhabvala's Heat and Dust and A New Dominion, Naipaul's A Bend in the River and Rushdie's Midnight's Children cannot fail to strike responsive chords in readers here and elsewhere in south Asia and Africa, who are attuned to the history of the Commonwealth's recent past.

As a dedicated reader of crime fiction myself, I have often regretted that home-grown whodunits of quality have not emerged in Sri Lanka, while detective fiction from the pens and typewriters of Agatha Christie and others, which gained unprecedented popularity in the West between the two World Wars, continues to hold its own in local bookshops and libraries. Indeed, Agatha Christie's perennial popularity might surprise anyone who is not aware that her novels describe what is for us an idyllic existence: catching The 4.50 from Paddington, and exploring Murder on the Orient Express or The Mysterious Affair at Styles, we thankfully enter a world very different from the one we currently inhabit in Sri Lanka, in which real life, during and after a 30-year civil war, has become much bloodier than her fiction. The mutual respect Christie depicts as existing between Scotland Yard and both her great amateur detectives Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, which makes just and satisfactory endings possible for her stories, is no longer, sadly, part of our everyday experience here. When ordinary citizens can no longer look to an incorruptible police force for the protection of their lives and property, the subtle charm of Miss Marple - an essential part of her character - would find survival difficult.

Political concerns

We exist these days in an atmosphere so saturated with political concerns of the most depressing kind, that literature and the arts have themselves become contaminated. In assembling this collection of books that have shaped the thinking of the twentieth century, and subjecting each to a fresh and lively inquiry, Prof Wijesinha has performed a service to Sri Lankan letters. Reading these essays in The Island newspaper in which they first appeared, and re-reading them here, I have been simultaneously entertained, instructed, and refreshed.

For this last reason among many others, I am in his debt. Exceedingly well-informed, formidably well-read, energetic and open-minded, he is the perfect guide to good literature. No one else writing in Sri Lanka today could, I believe, have undertaken such a demanding task, and brought it off so successfully.

But there is something more to be said. In addition to introducing new sights and locations, a guided tour sometimes gives a traveller a chance to revisit places in which, if the chance ever arose, he/she had always hoped to spend more time. Readers of this book will find in Prof Wijesinha an erudite and trustworthy guide to twentieth century fiction, whose knowledge of the ground will lead them, not only to view again the justly famous features of a particular landscape, but also to explore for themselves, at leisure, delights once glimpsed and regretfully passed by.