Glesener is a realist, as uncompromising as the limits of art allow, a humorist, a satirist, a psychologist, a stylist of the classic tradition—and, above all, a fascinating story-teller. Keen observers of human nature are rarely optimists, and Glesener has been branded as a cynic. Such a charge will not bear close examination, although he wields at times a vitriolic pen; the matter and the tone of his books vary with the characters he has under observation, and the unbiased reader is seldom conscious of any parti-pris. His realism is concentrated on the study of humanity; descriptions are generally short and included only in so far as they serve directly to provoke sentiment or action. Like Stendhal—one of his masters—“il ne veut point, par des moyens factices, fasciner l‘âme du lecteur.” His biographer remarks with much acumen: “Glesener ne narrait point parce qu'il avait vu un paysage digne d‘être peuplé de personnages plus ou moins fictifs; il a devant les yeux des êtres vivants, il en étudie le mécanisme intérieur.” His intellectual interest in all types of men around him is the best guarantee of his sincerity; cynicism, for him, would lie in the falsification of what he has seen. The rôle of the artist is to communicate, still more to interpret boldly and dramatically what his experience of life has taught him and what may have escaped others. Here humour is indispensable. Glesener is richly endowed with it, implicit and explicit; it serves as a leaven to his rather sombre view of life and gives a balance that recalls the classic manner. He has sought a similar effect in his style, choosing sober directness rather than color. “J'ai surtout étudié les écrivains dont la langue, vigoureusement membrée, montrait l'ossature de la phrase sous le revêtement des mots,” he writes; occasionally he relishes a parody of bombastic, flowery Alexandrianism. It seems idle to attempt to trace direct influences in his work. He has made no secret of his youthful cult of Flaubert among others; I shall recall on occasion, by way of illustration, books more widely read in America than are his, but there can be no question of direct borrowing: his vigorous originality stands unquestioned. By mastery of plot which holds his audience and by unostentatious psychological acumen, he is in the first rank. His characters are revealed by action; substituting for commentary a plan more in harmony with his objective method, he frequently conceives them in antithetical pairs; thus one serves as foil to the other. Glesener declares that he has never consciously sought these contrasts, and it is easy to believe him: all his actors seem introduced for their intrinsic interest as well as for their contribution to the whole.
