THE PRICE OF PRIZES

Current French literature is facing an extraordinary problem, according to latest reports. Literally, it is sinking under the weight of its own decorations. Almost as many prizes are being awarded annually for the "book of the year", as there are books published. Bookstains in Montmartre are lost in a maze or color,--red, green, and gold banded book-covers, shutting out the name of the author eagerly displaying the fact that the sevel almost won the "Prix do Goncourt", or that voters in some weekly's popularity contest put only two other books ahead of it.

The avalanche of honors is sweeping everything before it. Old favorites among the authors, finding their thrones tottering, protest against the injustice of a system which makes it possible for an unknown at one step to reach popular fame. Young "also-rans form street-corner indignation meetings against the injustice of all plebiscites and all judges. Nevertheless authors, a old and young, unite in striving to out-elbow each other in the shuffle for decorated popularity.

In the meantime the bewildered public is completely at a loss. In the absence of balanced literary reviews, the average Frenchman is thrown upon the decisions of the prize juries to guide his choice of books. A writer in "L'Oeuvre" recalls the newspaper story of the catch of a marvellous fish off the Pont Royal, and how by 8 o'clock of the day the paper appeared, two hundred would-be fishermen and six hundred spectators were on the spot to see the performance repeated. Similarly, he points out, is there a rush of people to the booksellers to obtain some obscure book, because the "Matin" or the "Temps" informs then that the Academic Goncourt has just "recognized" it.

The unmistakable impression all this flood of awards is making upon French literature is deplored on all sides. More and more authors are tending to write flashy, prize-winning books without any permanent value; and the ease and number of awards has already lessened their worth and the confidence in the juries which made them. Even the security or that court of highest appeal, the "Academic Francaise" is feared for. French critics, storm, protest, and sign manifestos,--but the only effect so far has been to call forth the announcement of a new fiction prize of 30,000 francs. Present day prophets the "wise one", predict a day when French authors will be obliged to conceal the fact that their work was "Crowned",--after this "disease" has run its logical course. The dimculty today is that the "disease", apparently, is not yet as its height.