"gp08w10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Parker Gilbert)

difference is in the setting, is in the language or dialect which
is the vehicle of expression, and in race and character, which are the
media of human idiosyncrasy. There is nothing new in anything that one
may write, except the outer and visible variation of race, character, and
country, which reincarnates the everlasting human ego and its scena.

The atmosphere of a story or novel is what temperament is to a man.
Atmosphere cannot be created; it is not a matter of skill; it is a matter
of personality, of the power of visualisation, of feeling for the thing
which the mind sees. It has been said that my books possess atmosphere.
This has often been said when criticism has been more or less acute upon
other things; but I think that in all my experience there has never been
a critic who has not credited my books with that quality; and I should
say that Pierre and His People and A Romany of the Snows have an
atmosphere in which the beings who make the stories live seem natural to
their environment. It is this quality which gives vitality to the
characters themselves. Had I not been able to create atmosphere which
would have given naturalness to Pierre and his friends, some of the
characters, and many of the incidents, would have seemed monstrosities
--melodramatic episodes merely. The truth is, that while the episode,
which is the first essential of a short story, was always in the very
forefront of my imagination, the character or characters in the episode
meant infinitely more to me. To my mind the episode was always the
consequence of character. That almost seems a paradox; but apart from
the phenomena of nature, as possible incidents in a book, the episodes
which make what are called "human situations" are, in most instances, the
sequence of character and are incidental to the law of the character set
in motion. As I realise it now, subconsciously, my mind and imagination
were controlled by this point of view in the days of the writing of
Pierre and His People.

In the life and adventures of Pierre and his people I came, as I think,
to a certain command of my material, without losing real sympathy with
the simple nature of things. Dexterity has its dangers, and one of its
dangers is artificiality. It is very difficult to be skilful and to ring
true. If I have not wholly succeeded in A Romany of the Snows, I think I
have not wholly failed, as the continued appeal of a few of the stories
would seem to show.




ACROSS THE JUMPING SANDHILLS

"Here now, Trader; aisy, aisy! Quicksands I've seen along the sayshore,
and up to me half-ways I've been in wan, wid a double-and-twist in the
rope to pull me out; but a suckin' sand in the open plain--aw, Trader,
aw! the like o' that niver a bit saw I."

So said Macavoy the giant, when the thing was talked of in his presence.