在開始寫作另一部小說之前，我想找到一種新的敘事形式，一種令我振奮的敘述形式。我厭倦了小說的常見形式。這不是因為我小說寫得太多，而可能是因為我讀了太多?，F(xiàn)在，敘述者的常用手法似乎乏味得可怕。我想，這就是為什么最近我開始寫劇作的一個原因：一段時間里完全擺脫敘事體是一個可喜的改變。傳統(tǒng)的混合手法是部分客觀，部分主觀?！耙庾R流”的技巧則與多蘿西·理查森小姐、詹姆斯·喬伊斯先生和弗吉尼亞·伍爾夫夫人聯(lián)系在一起。我發(fā)現(xiàn)，它比混合手法更令人生厭?！耙庾R流”非常容易寫砸。當然，上邊的三位小說家做得很好。但就算是這樣，一小段意識流就能讓我夠受。 
在所有的小說手法中，“意識流”無疑是最為“凌亂”的一種。一旦你掌握它，一旦你從最初的驚喜沖擊中回過神來，它的凌亂很快就開始讓你厭煩。此外，這種手法嚴重限制了小說讀者的理解范疇：它總是讓我聯(lián)想到一個邋遢的女人，整天穿著寬大晨衣和寢用拖鞋在屋子里晃蕩，懶得澡都不洗，更別提什么改變，連走出去看一看外邊的世界都不會。對我來說，即使是這一手法的最卓越運用者，他們似乎都根本不是真正的小說家，而是荒誕的獨白者和散文詩人，就像伍爾夫夫人和喬伊斯先生。后者曾經(jīng)聲稱，小說因他而重獲生機。但是，最近一代的小說家卻給我不同的經(jīng)驗。在我看來，他的影響似乎非常小，而且實際上正在減弱。對于伍爾夫夫人，非常明智地說，她更受欽佩而不是被模仿。 
對于小說的創(chuàng)作，意識流的相反取向是完全的客觀手法。即是說，小說全部由描述和對話組成，看不到人物的內(nèi)心活動。這也可以寫得很有意思。海明威就是這樣做的。當然，他的寫作具有非常強烈的個人風格。這對他自己來說是一個好的表現(xiàn)手段，但是其他人就應該避免了。其實，我心里的這種客觀小說與有聲電影劇本沒有什么不同。對話和描述交替出現(xiàn)，并且地點時時變化。這樣，你就可以呈現(xiàn)出廣闊的場景。
現(xiàn)代小說朝著兩個方向推進?！耙庾R流”作家是為向內(nèi)。向外，則是要包羅最可能多的人物角色。這種“博覽法”正是我們時代的特色：為你連續(xù)展現(xiàn)所有相關人物的生命快鏡頭。那些小說描述著賓館、旅舍、船舶、辦公室等等。它們都是這種“博覽法”的例子。顯然，它滿足了我們這個時代的某種特定需求。并且，它可能是在對抗將人類抽象化的趨勢。精細化的社會組織中，人的抽象是不可避免的。對于某個人物，這些小說并沒有告訴你那么多。但是，它們在人物人性化的問題上成功了?？梢赃@么說，之前僅僅是社會機器一部分的東西都被賦予了人性。當然，它們也有對幕后世界的強烈興趣。我懷疑，這些小說寫得還算好并不難，但是難于成為文學作品。 
盡管我自己有一些失敗，但是我仍然堅守在小說創(chuàng)作伊始就持有的信念：當代小說的拯救之道自始至終都是某種戲劇化象征主義。這是一種在多層世界同時推進的敘事手法。小說，如果迷失于主觀性之中，就不再成其為小說。但是，它也必須具有它的主觀旨趣。這又是一種精神與靈魂的“戲劇”。對我而言，激起我最濃厚興趣的現(xiàn)代小說似乎大都是象征主義。按照我的意思，托馬斯·曼的《魔山》就是一個相當不錯的例子。只是在某些地方，他完全拋棄了現(xiàn)實主義敘事的常調(diào)與虛詞。這樣，中間章節(jié)的那些長篇議論成為了不和諧音。
不過，我不喜歡象征主義故事。我們的時代中，這種故事有好幾個德語例子。究其本身而言，這種敘事所表現(xiàn)出的外部事件荒誕不經(jīng)。在你理解到它的象征之前，它根本就毫無意義。如此這般，設想你的故事是一個人奮力拯救他的房子。結(jié)果我們說，這座房子實際上是這個人靈魂的象征。但是，我想事情不是這么回事。如果房子被視為房子而不是靈魂的象征，那么這個故事就是荒謬可笑的。這還不如直接去寫靈魂的那些事，并且也就完事了。不，這種敘事變得喜聞樂見也應該是可能的。它可以講述成一個人與他房子的奇遇。 
你追求的是什么？當然，小說的吸引力同時存在于不同的層面上。這正是為什么《唐吉訶德》就這樣成為巨著的原因。并且，它還可能被視為是所有小說的模式。在這里，我要承認這也是我在小說中所一直追求的東西。我還得承認，我從沒有成功過。我的讀者不多，不過我相信比大多數(shù)評論家更接近成功。他們常常急近過度，他們會容許我這么說。與這種文學差事相比，我認為那些乖張嘩眾的常用噱頭十足就是小兒科。他們是所謂的小說“知識分子”，“意識流”之流，大塊啃書的坐家，以及吹毛鉆角精工控。
是的，我同時要承認，這些小說家所努力的事比我做得成功?；蛟S，我的問題是，無論綢繆多么細致，我那由衷而蒂固的“常識”都會發(fā)揮它的作用。或者說，如果你堅持，那就是一種徹底平庸的執(zhí)念。看來，我沒有卓絕而高妙的思想。一旦完全置身小說創(chuàng)作，我就開始自娛自樂。有些人真的擁有卓絕而高妙的頭腦。我自得其樂的眼界不會入他們的法眼。所以，即使不再流行已久，我還會仍然是一個“流行小說家”。
這不止是可能吧。
Before I begin writing another novel, I should like to find a new method of narration, a form that would excite me. Not because I
write so much but probably because I read so much fiction, I am tired of the
usual form of the novel. The ordinary
devices of the narrator now seem horribly tedious. I think that is one reason why I have
recently taken to writing plays: it is a pleasant change to get rid of
It might be fun to go in the opposition direction, producing novels that were completely objective in manner, novels made up entirely of description and dialogue, with not a glimpse of anybody’s mind in them. Mr Ernest Hemingway has done this, of course,but very much in his own intensely individual manner, which is a fine instrument
for his own purpose but should be avoided by anyone else. No, the kind of objective novel I have in mind would be not unlike the scenario of a talking film, with its alternations of dialogue and description and its frequent changes of locality. With that you could present a wide scene. The modern novel has moved in two directions, inward with the “stream of consciousness” writers, and outward, that is, taking in the largest possible number of people as characters. This extensive method is very characteristic of our time: all these novels about hotels, boarding houses, ships, offices, and so on, that show you quick successive glimpses of the lives of all the people concerned, are examples of this extensive method. Obviously it fulfils some particular need of our own time, and may possibly be a protest against the tendency, inevitable in an elaborate social organization, to turn human beings into abstractions. These novels do not tell you a great deal about anybody, but they do succeed in humanizing, so to speak, what was before merely a part of the social machinery.
They have too, of course, a strong behind-the-scenes interest. I suspect that these novels are easy to do passably well, but hard to turn into literature.
In spite of some failures on my own part, I still cling to the belief I held when I first started writing fiction, that the way of salvation for the contemporary novel, which if it becomes lost in subjectivity ceases to be a novel and yet must have its subjective interests, its drama of the mind and soul, is through some kind of dramatic symbolism, in narratives that would move in more than one world at once. Most of the modern novels
that have excited my deepest interest seem to me to have been symbolical. (Mann’s Magic Mountain is a fairly good example of what I mean, though in places he abandons any pretence of ordinary realistic narrative, and the long debates in the middle chapters are out of key.) But I do not like the kind of story, of which there are several contemporary German examples, in which the narrative of outward events is preposterous in itself and means nothing at all until you understand its symbolism. Thus, suppose you have s story of a man trying to save his house. The house, we will say, is really a symbol of the man’s soul.
But it will not do, I argue, if the story is ridiculous when the house is seen as a house and not as a soul; better to write about the soul and have done with it. No, it ought to be
possible to enjoy the narrative as an account of a man’s adventures with his
house. What you are after, of course, is
the appeal on several different levels at the same time. That is why Don Quixote such is a colossal achievement, and may be regarded as
the pattern of all fiction. I will
confess, here and now, that this is what I have always been after in novels,
and I will also confess that I have never succeeded, though I believe I have
come nearer to success with a small number of readers than most reviewers, who
are usually in too much of a hurry, would allow. Compared with this task, I consider the
ordinary antics of so-called “intellectual” novelists, the “stream of
consciousness” people, the writers who cram in chunks of erudition, the
elaborate hair-splitters, to be so much child’s play; though I will admit at
once that these novelists do what they set out to do more successfully than I
do. Probably, my trouble is that no matter
how carefully I plan, a cheerful and robust common sense, or, if you insist,
downright commonplaceness of outlook, will come in. It seems I have not a distinguished and
fastidious mind; and once I am fairly set in a novel, I begin to enjoy myself,
and the sight of my enjoying myself is apparently not pleasing to people who
really have distinguished and fastidious minds.
So I shall remain a “popular novelist” even when – and this is more than
likely – I have long ceased to be popular.
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