He had no wish to obliterate anything he had written, but he would dearly have liked to revise it, envying painters, who are allowed to return to the same theme time and time again, clarifying and enriching until they have done all they can with it. A novelist is condemned to provide a succession of novelties, new names for characters, new incidents for his plots, new scenery; but; Mr Pinfold maintained, most men harbour the germs of one or two books only; all else is professional trickery of which the most daemonic of the masters - Dickens and Balzac even - were flagrantly guilty.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- A novelist wishes to revise old work like painters do, but must keep producing new work, leading to professional trickery rather than deepening a single theme.
- In plain terms
- Writers wish they could keep improving old books, but they have to keep making new ones.
- What can you take from it?
- Authors often feel trapped into making new work instead of perfecting old ideas.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Is it better to perfect one book or write many?
- How does industry pressure affect art?
Another view
It assumes most authors only have a few great ideas, which may not be true.
More from Evelyn Waugh
It may happen in the next hundred years that the English novelists of the present day will come to be valued as we now value the artists and craftsmen of the l…
Permalink to quote #13 A typical triumph of modern science to find the only part of Randolph that was not malignant and remove it.' Diary entry (March 1964), after hearing that docto…
Permalink to quote #15 Don't hold your parents up to contempt. After all, you are their son, and it is just possible that you may take after them.
Permalink to quote #12
Related quotes
Writing is not 'the establishment of a professional reputation' as if one were a doctor or lawyer; it is not properly in the sentence with creation of a family…
Elizabeth HardwickElizabeth Hardwick quote #7 Much of writing might be described as mental pregnancy with successive difficult deliveries.
J. B. PriestleyJ. B. Priestley quote #6 What I intended to do was to burn a half dozen of my books and keep warm, so that I could write my story, but when I looked around for titles to burn, I couldn…
William SaroyanWilliam Saroyan quote #33