For Jonas Lie is not (like so many of his brethren of the quill)
a mere inoffensive gentleman who spins yarns for a living, but he is a
forceful personality of bright perceptions and keen sensations, which
has chosen to express itself through the medium of the novel. He dwells
in a many-windowed house, with a large outlook upon the world and its
manifold concerns. In a score of novels of varying degrees of excellence
he has given us vividly realized bits of the views which his windows
command. But what lends their chief charm to these uncompromising
specimens of modern realism is a certain richness of temperament on the
author's part, which suffuses even the harshest narrative with a rosy
glow of hope. Though, generally speaking, there is no very close kinship
between him and the French realists, I am tempted to apply to him Zola's
beautiful characterization of Daudet: "Benevolent Nature placed him at
that exquisite point where reality ends and poetry begins." Before he
had yet written a single book, except a volume of flamboyant verse,
Bjoernson said of him in a public speech: "His friends know that he only
has to plunge his landing-net down into himself in order to bring it up
full.
Pages:
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166