Pages

Thursday 9 May 2019

The tabulators and the watersifters




Now it is a fact that I have never called myself a ‘realist,’ and I have never put forth any work as ‘realism.’ I decline the labels of the schoolmen and the sophisters: being a simple writer of tales, who takes whatever means lie to his hand to present life as he sees it; who insists on no process; and who refuses to be bound by any formula or prescription prepared by the cataloguers and the pigeon-holers of literature...

In conclusion: the plan and the intention of my story made it requisite that, in telling it, I should largely adhere to fact; and I did so. If I write other tales different in scope and design, I shall adhere to fact or neglect it as may seem good to me: regardless of anybody’s classification as a realist, or as anything else. For though I have made a suggestion, right or wrong, as to what a realist may be, whether I am one or not is no concern of mine; but the concern (if it be anybody’s) of the tabulators and the watersifters.

Arthur Morrison - A Child of the Jago (1896)

Morrison is defending himself against those who tried to classify him and his stories about life in a fictional London slum - the Jago based on Old Nichol. In his view he simply wrote stories which adhered closely to what he saw and knew well. 

This was his art, his way of doing something about what he saw, showing middle class people what slums were for those who had to live in them. Some didn't like his uncompromising word pictures, but to classify him as a ‘realist’ was to shift the focus from the slums to the writer and Morrison seems to have disliked that shift.

The tabulators and the watersifters – we have even more of them today. Shift the focus, always shift the focus – it’s what they do.

4 comments:

Scrobs. said...

It's called 'spin' these days!

The first time I ever heard the term was in the excellent 'Charters and Caldicott' programmes, which were utterly hilarious, and far too expensive to buy nowadays!

Sam Vega said...

" Shift the focus, always shift the focus – it’s what they do."

While careers are built on it. It seems to be what talentless people do when they fancy themselves as creative. Come to think of it, shifting the focus has become the greater part of politics.

James Higham said...

Too much art, not enough storytelling.

A K Haart said...

Scrobs - maybe a really good laugh isn't so expensive in the end.

Sam - yes it has become the greater part of politics and those outside the bubble are sick of it. Yet almost all bubble dwellers do it, as if it is a key part of the induction.

James - that's how Morrision saw it.