Gosse, Edmund (1849-1928)

The Life of John Buncle [from Gossip in a Library]

1913

"But there was a twist in his brain which made his pictures of real life appear like scenes looked at through flawed glass."

No odder book than John Buncle was published in England throughout the long life of Amory. Romances there were, like Gulliver's Travels and Peter Wilkins, in which the incidents were much more incredible, but there was no supposition that these would be treated as real history. The curious feature of John Buncle is that the story is told with the strictest attention to realism and detail, and yet is embroidered all over with the impossible. There can be no doubt that Amory, who belonged to an older school, was affected by the form of the new novels which were the fashion in 1756. He wished to be as particular as Mr. Richardson, as manly as Captain Fielding, as breezy and vigorous as Dr. Smollett, the three new writers who were all the talk of the town. But there was a twist in his brain which made his pictures of real life appear like scenes looked at through flawed glass.
(p. 175)

Optics::Glass

Reading

Edmund Gosse, Gossip in a Library (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1914). <Link to Google Books>

09/28/2012