Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/199

 THE NOVEL Jókai's most stri king talent lay in his wanderfui power of invention. He wrote several bu ndred Ionger or shorter stories, but in every one he surprises us with a fresh plot and new ideas, so inexhaustible was his inven­ tiveness. His mao ner of telling a story is fascinating. His narra­ tive runs so easily and interestingly that every incident is readily gras ped. His style reminds us of the best novelists of th e Latin nati ons, though it has many purely Hungarian features. We may say that just as Petőfi's poems were an exalted form of the folk-song, so J ókai's staries were a glorification of the anecdote. This accounts for his sparkling vivacity and fluency, but also for his superficiality. The amiable character of Jókai's genius was enhanced by his humour, which was not so subtie as Kemény's nor so bitter as Thackeray' s, but gay and agreeable, and created a pleasant atmosphere. His inventiveness was aided by a vivid imaginatio n which coloured every plot and incident with marvellaus richness. W e may almost say that there has not been a more brilliant narrator since the time of the ArabiatJ Nigh ts. But with his great qualities Jókai had one defect. Though a great novelist, curiously enough he had no real knowledge of human nature. He could not look into men's hearts, and his characterisation was often psycho­ logicaily false. He al ways tried to discover something surprising and interesti ng, and to this end he frequently altered the character of his actors in an improbable w ay. His best novels are those in which he painted the Hungary of his day. One of the finest is The New La1downer. This is a delightful and amusing picture of