Page:The Best continental short stories of and the yearbook of the continental short story 1924-25.pdf/15



Generalities, like statistics, are usually logical but they are often erroneous. To summarize in a few lines even some of the most universal characteristics of the contemporary short story in twenty-odd countries is as difficult a task as the description of the similarity of languages represented in the Tower of Babel. Nevertheless, there are certain generalities about Continental literature of 1924–25 which have the double merit of being logical and at the same time, exact.

One finds throughout European literature of 1924–25 and particularly in the short story which is perhaps the most exact reproduction of political feeling, an affirmation of the old Italian saying: Non ricordar il capestro in casa dell’impiccato. (Do not talk of the halter in the house of the man who has been hanged.) Throughout contemporary literature there is a pronounced absence of naturalism. Allegory and fantasy have assumed a rôle far more important in the creation of the short story on the continent than in the United States or Great Britain. It is as if the authors sensed vaguely the world weariness of strife and of hatred and sought in some measure to attain an imaginary Utopia. The public has apparently lost interest in the vital naturalism of Schnitzler and of Gorki. Sometimes this aversion to drama does not seek a substitute in allegory. There has likewise been a marked increase in short stories dealing with children, as for instance in the “Youthful Athenæum Days” by Baekelmans which is characteristic of this tendency. There are, of course, excep tions to every fixed rule. “Jerzy” by Grubinski affords an excellent example but even in the case of Grubinski who has imitated rather successfully the Grand Guignol type of literature, there is a marked novelty. Grubinski has chosen a juvenile character for the chief figure of his dramatic story. One of the most remarkable books of short stories is