stitute formal or aesthetic values forncultural values. In other words, the formalisticncharacter of modern fiction,nthe impulse toward “pure art.” whichnMcCarthy finds so repellent, is closelynrelated to a divorce between literary andncultural values.nW. J. Harvey treats the same phenomenonnin Character and the Novelnwhen he discusses the individual’s sensenof insecurity when his relation to hisnworld is no longer “given stability bynbeing part of a divinely-ordered cosmos.”nAccording to Harvey, the response ofnearlv 20th-century novelists was to seekna sense of stabilitv in the work of artnitself:nBecause the work of art—viewed as anself-sufficient artifact—is a necessarynand not a contingent thing. It is anthing wrenched from the chaotic fluxnof the experienced world; it has itsnown laws and its own firm structurenof relationships; it can, like a systemnof geometry, be held to be absolutelyntrue within its own conveniently establishednterms.nThus the novelist’s task is to present annordered world in contrast to, not in imitationnof, the world of ordinary experience.nThe change that McCarthy attributesnto an elimination of ideas fromnfiction actually results from the antimimeticntendencies generated by thenbreakdown of traditional religious andncultural values.nAAenry James is the villain of Ideasnand the Novel. While it is true that henwrought significant changes in the artnof fiction, changes leading away fromnthe 19th-century novels McCarthy admires,nshe might to some extent bengiving him a bum rap. Timothy P. Martinnin “Henry James and Percy Lubbock:nFrom Mimesis to Formalism” (Novel:nA Forum on Fiction, Fall 1980) arguesnpersuasively that many of the ideas andnattitudes ascribed to James actually originatednwith Lubbock. In The Craft ofnFiction, one of the seminal theoreticalnworks of our century, Lubbock’s debtnto James is great and clearly acknowledged.nBut the ideas of the two havenbeen identified too closelv and the differencesnoversimplified. According tonMartin, James, for all his interest innthe formal aspects of fiction, was ultimatelyna mimetic critic whose primaryninterest was in a novel’s relationshipnto reality and its moral quality. Lubbocknwas the rigorous formalist. “For James,nfiction was a means to an end: for Lubbock,nfiction was an end in itself.”nMcCarthy suggests that James’s allegednexclusion of ideas in the sensenof mental concepts was a consequencenof his “exclusion of common factuality.”nShe recognizes a strong affinitynbetween ideas and facts. In an essay onn”The Fact in Fiction” (I960), she claimsnthat “The passion for fact in a raw statenis a peculiarity of the novelist. Most ofnthe great novels contain blocks andnlumps of fact—refractory lumps in thenporridge of the story.” She thinks thennovel resembles the newspaper, withnodds and ends of information and thennews items of the day. “Even when it isnmost serious, the novel’s characteristicnis one of gossip and tittletattle.” Thesenattitudes are reflected in her own fiction.nThe Group bears a cumbrous burdennof facts and “tittletattle”; indeed,nthe heavy reliance on the cataloguing ofndetails culled from real life gives thennnimpression that life has not been sufficientlynstrained through the refiningnnet of the author’s imagination.nThe case of Birds of America is similar.nThe cataloguing of subjects thatnpass through the mind of the liberalnundergraduate main character —thenGoldwater campaign, Vietnam, communism,nthe C .LA.. civil-rights marchesn— seem interminable and not closelynrelated to the novel’s alleged mainntheme, which is made explicit in thenlast sentence: “Nature is dead.”nHer theory of fiction is based on thennotion that if she gets the details or factsnright they will have coherence and pattern.nThe pattern is in the experiencenand should not be imposed from the outside.nThere is truth in this, but appliednin her own novels, the theory’s limitationsnbecome immediately apparent. Inngreat novels, facts follow ideas—thenshaping and selecting imagination activelynorders the flux of experience insteadnof merely describing it.nIdeas and the Novel is eminentlynreadable, and it is interesting to observenMcCarthy’s quick mind responding tonthe great French and Russian novelsnof the 19th century (these are her mainnfocus); but her tendency to view ideasnas exclusively social or political and tonconfuse ideas with topical facts and informationnis disappointing. In a booknwith such a title, one would like thenideas considered to be fundamental onesnconcerning the nature of man and hisnrelationship to his world, his fellownmen, and his God. As Henry James,nMcCarthy’s bete noire, said in an 1874nessay on Turgenev:nThe great question as to a poet or annovelist is. How does he feel aboutnlife.’ What, in the last analysis, is hisnphilosophy.’ When vigorous writersnhave reached maturity we are at libertynto look in their works for some expressionnof a total view of the worldnthey have been so actively observing.nThis is the most interesting thingntheir works offer us. Details are interestingnin proportion as they contributento make it clear. DnM H ^ ^ ^ i l H H ^ SnSeptember/October 1981n