The myriads of Prussians germs, gases, and gangrenes released into the air and for the past year obsessing everything, revived my quiescent creation.
In his Prologue to the book (his first published novel) Lewis writes of the conception of his story. The “germs, gases and gangrenes” to which he refers are not mere metaphor: the book originated in serial form during the waning years of the first World War.
If you look very closely at my grin, you will perceive that it is a very logical and deliberate grimace.
The grin which the author refers to here is more properly capitalized. The Grin is a metaphor for the British persona that acts as a “maudlin and self-defensive” mask for a dangerous sentimentality in the national character which lies behind it.
The true German seeks every day, by little acts of boorishness, to keep fresh this trenchant Prussian attitude.
The Grin of the British national personality is situated in opposition to the German character which is described as also being a mask. In opposition to the smile on the faces of the English, the identifying facial characteristic of the German is a stern frown which all authentic emotions recoiled behind it.
“Death is the thing that differentiates art and life. Art is identical with the idea of permanence. It is a continuity and not an individual spasm. Life is the idea of the person”
Although a novel of culture and politics and sociology, at heart the narrative is about art because every one of its most important characters are artists. Not until close to the end is there the usual expected debate over the meaning of art, however. Indeed, the debate in which this definition is proffered commences with the question “What is art” and even after the question is answered continues on for another few pages.
“The English are stupid hypocrites, then.”
Kreisler
“The Germans are uncouth but zealous liars.”
Tarr
While the characters and narrative revolve around the Bohemian lives of artists, the pervasive theme of the novel is an exploration of the idea of national character. Or, perhaps more appropriately, of the idea of a national psychology. Kreisler is here boiling down the essential psychological driving force of the British from a German perspective while the British Tarr does the same for the German personality. Because they are artists rather than soldiers or politicians or representative of some other more aggressive career-type, these ingrained prejudices toward the other man's cultural psychology plays out in a series of philosophical debates rather than violent confrontations.
