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I'd like to ask Mr. Simenon and Mr. Sloane perhaps to discuss the influence of literary prizes given by juries of literate men on the sale of books. The reason I asked Mr. Simenon and Mr. Sloane to consider the question is because in France, the literary prizes seem to have very much the same effect on the sale of a book as the Book of the Month selection here.

And I was just curious to know whether they see a trend in this country with Mr. Ellison's winning of the National Book Award and William Styron's winning the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, prizes like those on which you have men like Alan Tate on the juries. Do these have any effect on sales? And if so, do they see any trend toward a reinforcing of this particular phenomenon in the future?

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Well--

Lots of them.

All of them? Well, one--

One question I had for Mr. Frohock was in relation to the moral imagination. I think Mr. Ellison answered very well. But I would like to ask him how he considers-- He made a statement about it not being a moral act to be disgusted with a pigsty or a slum. It seems to me that--

Well, the question is whether or not it is more of a moral act to be annoyed or disgusted or want to change a slum, or is it more of another kind of act? It seems to me that when you have an imagination without some kind of morality involved, what you get is Celine and not Mr. Ellison or Richard Wright, a writing of that kind.

This is the thing that is lacking in much of literature and that is needed. I think when you abstract-- if you want to go away from the formalist critics but you want something new, what it winds up with is an investigation of the technique that Mr. Ellison uses in this section of the novel that you mentioned, which seemed--

I'd like an answer that question, by the way, whether that was apropos. It seemed to me that section of the novel-- this is another question--

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Wasn't the technique in that section more straightforward and more naturalistic?

Yes. I thought you were referring particularly to that section in the hospital.

Well, what would you posit-- continue the question-- as an activity for the critic in terms of the novel rather than the consideration of the moral imagination?

I'm sorry. It wasn't. The main question that I have is whether or not you consider the moral imagination-- with emphasis on the moral-- to be the quintessence of the novelist job and activity.

You seem to be throwing out--

Yeah.

And what would you put?

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INAUDIBLE it seems like it's awfully--

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I had a question.

Fine. Thank you. It seemed to me when Mr. Frohock was speaking-- I'd like to get Mr. Frohock off the hook, but I don't see my way to advise since he apparently has insight into wanting the stuff that I don't have. The idea about manners in the novel and any relevance to this discussion.

It seems to me we're drifting clean off into Plutonic orbits in this morality, beauty business. You seem to feel that Mr. Trilling doesn't want to abandon the moral imagination, and yet we have some difficulty in not doing so.

And I wondered whether this idea of memories of in the novel is the kind of medial point that Trilling sought that is an invasion or perhaps a solution. In other words, what does Trilling mean by manners and knowledge? Or if you don't know the answer, perhaps someone here does.

Now, do you think he means by manners anything like what Eliot means by a way of life when he speaks of that and the idea of political society particularly

I know that from something Mr. Frohock said, that he felt that if we had another sort of criticism or a different sort of criticism, a criticism of some kind, a novelist like Sinclair Lewis would be more highly regarded. I wish he would tell me what I can't see. I feel that Sinclair Lewis to many readers today is just dull.

I don't see how any kind of criticism can make them change their minds about it being being dull. But if they don't change their minds, why are they going to be interested, and why are they going to read it? I'd like some hint about what this kind of criticism could be and how it would operate.

So I think this is quite different from the kind of criticism that enables some people to understand what they previously didn't understand so to find something interesting simply because they're given a wider web, which I don't think would be at all the case about the type of criticism you would have to have, and it's possible, here.

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Do you feel then the critic should explain why so many readers do find Lewis dull?

No. Are you?

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Not in this day INAUDIBLE

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Well, I was thinking particularly of the novel since the war. The novel that you seem to think has become so subjective -- too subjective, too much within --

I don't hold with that, but he says the bourgeois comes home to his wife, and his wife says, "Faulkner SPEAKING FRENCH ." And the businessman says, "oui, Faulkner SPEAKING FRENCH ." But he's never read Faulkner. Or if he tried to read Faulkner he's always stopped in the middle because it was too difficult. And Ayme is arguing that this is intellectual suicide. It is the suicide of the bourgeoisie. And I think Ayme himself, and a number of young writers in England, are trying to get away from that. They're trying to get towards a new objectivity.

Is the writer's obligation to interpret his society with a negative capability or to repair that society, as someone in here said today?

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Why is it it varies from book to book and from reader to reader. But I do think that there are very many people today who simply can't read Sinclair Lewis. They just find him intolerably stupid.

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Some kind of person come down to Earth. I dare ask a question. A very distinguished professor emeritus of Harvard has said that, "William Faulkner writes for morons," unquote. May we have some expert comment on that?

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I think Professor--Mr.--Frohock said it.

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Seems to me that the most-- the very generalized discussion, which brought down INAUDIBLE , it was Ellison who said that the novel is a form of communication. And going from that, this question is directed to Mr. O'Connor, who has confused me considerably. I feel every time I stand up, there's a great chasm opening. And into this chasm disappear too many of my heroes.

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Mr. O'Connor, spoke INAUDIBLE of the novel of 1970-- '50 as emphasize middle-class values. And I think I got a pattern in my mind. This has been carried on.

In the '30s, we had the proletariat semi-political novels of Dos Passos and Steinbeck in dubious battle, which communicated the values of proletariat. And since the war, it seems to me we have a great many novelists who were in the war who are trying to communicate now the great uncertainty of the orgy of violence without reason that they were engulfed in. And I wonder if, Mr. O'Connor, do you think this is a valid thing for novels to communicate?

I know it's subjective. And is very personal to an individual. The novel has certainly become that, as you pointed out last night.

Yet isn't this all part of a pattern of communication, starting with the novel's forebearers?

Mr. O'Connor?

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I have been interested in the fact that so much emphasis has been laid upon the novel as a means of exploration of man, as giving us the knowledge of man. Now, if one followed the argument of monsieur Simenon, for instance, could we ask the question, what will happen to the novel if its essence is the knowledge of man when psychology, and history, and sociology become popularized? Is there not some danger in placing the essence of the novel in the knowledge of man? And what do you mean by knowledge in that sense?

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I'd like to ask Mr. West and Mr. Ellison why they think the novel isn't being sold and read today and whether it is because the novels are so sad, or because the novels are so sad, because people aren't buying them anymore.

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