The novelist, unlike the poet, uses words which must remain for him merely a vehicle of expression, a means to a greater end. The problems of the modern novel spring from the dilemma of deciding what these ends are, or ought to be.

Mr. Harris, sadly, seems to have no clear conception of the fundamental differences between these two sets of problems. First it is clear that he is obsessed with the poetic dilemma. It is sufficient to read one paragraph of [The Eye of the Scarecrow], or indeed any of his previous works, to realize that he does not find it possible to relate words to each other in the conventional manner required by the grammar of the language. Indeed, the problem of the meaning which words symbolize seems, if not irrelevant, at least postponed, in his preoccupation with solving what is for him the primary problem...