The British Barbarians

Grant Allen
The British Barbarians (1895)

Cheguei a este livro devido a numa nota de rodapé de A Máquina do Tempo de H.G. Wells, acerca da transcrição de uma citação de Grant Allen; a nota do tradutor apontava para a curiosidade de The British Barbarians ter sido editado no mesmo ano, tendo por tema uma situação inversa: um viajante do século XXV chegava à Inglaterra do século XIX. Na posse desta informação é fácil deduzir que Bertram Ingledew é o tal viajante (só no último capítulo o seu segredo é desvendado), apresentado como um estranho que chega a Brackenhurst, um arrabalde burguês ao sul de Londres, sem qualquer noção das normas sociais em vigor. Assim, após Philip Christy, um escriturário funcionário público, tê-lo apresentado a contragosto no seu meio familiar e comunitário, Bertram vai fazendo uma crítica modernista das convenções sociais victorianas, ridicularizando-as como “tabus” e “fetiches”, traçando paralelos com outros tabus existentes em sociedades primitivas de África ou das ilhas do Pacífico.
Grant Allen, nascido no Canadá mas educado em Inglaterra, começou por escrever trabalhos científicos mas em breve se voltou para a ficção, tendo publicado cerca de 30 novelas entre 1884 e 1899, ano da sua morte, das quais se destaca The Woman Who Did, também de 1895, cujo enredo sobre o casamento e o papel da mulher o envolveu em escândalo e se tornou num best-seller.
É demasiado fácil perceber onde Grant Allen quer chegar com The British Barbarians, apresentado ilusoriamente como um pioneiro da FC. Talvez não fosse de esperar outra coisa de um escritor ateu e socialista no final do séc. XIX; contudo, outros autores da mesma época, com convicções semelhantes, têm obras bem mais interessantes – H.G. Wells, por exemplo. O excerto pertence à Introdução, que contém as páginas mais significativas e elucidativas do livro.

Most novels nowadays have to run as serials through magazines or newspapers; and the editors of those periodicals are timid to a degree which outsiders would hardly believe, with regard to the fiction they admit into their pages. Endless spells surround them. This story or episode would annoy their Catholic readers; that one would repel their Wesleyan Methodist subscribers; such an incident is unfit for the perusal of the young person; such another would drive away the offended British matron. I do not myself believe there is any real ground for this excessive and, to be quite frank, somewhat ridiculous timidity. Incredible as it may seem to the ordinary editor, I am of opinion that it would be possible to tell the truth, and yet preserve the circulation. […] 

The romance that appeals to the average editor must say or hint at nothing at all that is not universally believed and received by everybody everywhere in this realm of Britain. But literature, as Thomas Hardy says with truth, is mainly the expression of souls in revolt. Hence the antagonism between literature and journalism. 

Why, then, publish one's novels serially at all? Why not appeal at once to the outside public, which has few such prejudices? Why not deliver one's message direct to those who are ready to consider it or at least to hear it? Because, unfortunately, the serial rights of a novel at the present day are three times as valuable, in money worth, as the final book rights. A man who elects to publish direct, instead of running his story through the columns of newspaper, is forfeiting, in other words, three quarters of his income. This loss the prophet who cares for his mission could cheerfully endure, of course, if only the diminished income were enough for him to live upon. But in order to write he must first eat. […] 

That, too, is the reason that impels me to embody such views as these in romantic fiction, not in deliberate treatises. “Why sow your ideas broadcast,” many honest critics say, “in novels where mere boys and girls can read them? Why not formulate them in serious and argumentative books, where wise men alone will come across them?” The answer is, because wise men are wise already; it is the boys and girls of a community who stand most in need of suggestion and instruction. Women, in particular, are the chief readers of fiction, and it is women whom one mainly desires to arouse to interest in profound problems by the aid of this vehicle. Especially should one arouse them to such living interest while they are still young and plastic, before they have crystallised and hardened into the conventional marionettes of polite society. Make them think while they are young; make them feel while they are sensitive: it is then alone that they will think and feel, if ever. I will venture, indeed, to enforce my views on this subject by a little apologue which I have somewhere read, or heard,—or invented. […] 

The business of the preacher is above all things to preach; but in order to preach, he must first reach his audience. The audience in this case consists in large part of women and girls, who are most simply and easily reached by fiction. Therefore, fiction is to-day the best medium for the preacher of righteousness who addresses humanity.