The Novel

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The Novel
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What is a Novel?
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A lengthy, written, prose narrative with a
protagonist.- Jane Smiley
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ProseProse slips by, common as waterPoetry,
in its search for concentration and sharp effect,
contracts. In prose, one thought leads to another
- it expands. It is naturally narrative. - JS
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What is Narrative?
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What is Narrative?the telling of a
story.As soon as we follow a subject with a
verb, there is a good chance we are engaged in
narrative discourse. I fell down, the child
cries and in the process tells her mother a
little narrative.-H. Porter Abbot
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Why is Narrative Important?
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Narrative capability shows up in infants in
their third or fourth year and coincides
roughly with the first memories that are retained
by adults of their infancy. In other words, we do
not have any mental record of who we are until
narrative is present. If this is so, then our
very definition as human beingsis very much
bound up with the stories we tell about our own
lives and the world we live in. -H. Porter
Abbot
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What is the difference between a story and a
plot?
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We have defined a story as a narrative of events
arranged in their time sequence. A plot is also a
narrative of events, the emphasis on causality.
The king died and then the queen diedis a
story. The king died and then the queen died of
grief is a plot. - E. M. Forster
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Narrative and NarratorPerhaps the most
important thing about narrative is that it
introduces the voice of the narratorSome
narrators offend, some narrators appeal, but all
narrators are present, the author but not the
author, the protagonist but not the protagonist,
an intermediary that the author and reader must
deal with. - JS
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Narrative and ProtagonistWhen the protagonist
enters, a novel becomes specific and even
peculiarThe prose, like the narrative, must be
appropriate to the protagonist. It must express
something about him that it could not express
about any other protagonist. - JS
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Narration (Example 1)My true name is so well
known in the records or registers at Newgate,
and in the Old Bailey, and there are some things
of such consequence still depending there,
relating to my particular conduct, that it is not
to be expected I should set my name or the
account of my family to this work perhaps after
my death it may be better known at present it
would not be proper, no, not though a general
pardon should be issued, even without exceptions
of persons or crimes.-1st sentence of The
Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll
Flanders spoken by the protagonist-narratorA
prison A court of law
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Narration (Example 2) Early in the morning,
late in the century, Cricklewood Broadway. At
06.27 hours on 1 January 1975, Alfred Archibald
Jones was dressed in corduroy and sat in a
fume-filled Cavalier Musketeer Estate face down
on the steering wheel, hoping the judgement would
not be too heavy upon him. He lay forward in a
prostrate cross, jaw slack, arms splayed either
side like some fallen angel scrunched up in each
fist he held his army service medals (left) and
his marriage license (right), for he had decided
to take his mistakes with him.- 1st sentence of
White Teeth
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Critics Say That Novels Are More Morally Complex
Than Some Other Artforms?Is This True? Why?
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The Length of the Novel, the Protagonist and
Moral Complexity A protagonist is usually
interesting not because he is someone special,
but because something happens to him. Because the
novel has to be long and organized, he has to
become interesting as he deals with the thing
that happens to him. This typical transformation
from an ordinary person to someone worth
remembering comes to seem both routine and
appealing, encouraging readers to see themselves
as potentially interesting and their lives as
potential material for novels. Thus are the moral
lives of readers encouraged to develop
complexity Every important character in a novel
is portrayed as having moral complexity. -JS
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Moral Complexity and OntologyEvery novels
spirit is the spirit of complexity. Every novel
says to the reader Things are not as simple as
you think. - Milan Kundera All novels, of
every age, are concerned with the enigma of the
self. As soon as you create an imaginary being, a
character, you are automatically confronted by
the question What is the self? How can the self
be grasped? It is one of those fundamental
questions on which the novel, as novel, is
based. - Milan Kundera
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OntologyA novel examines not reality but
existence. And existence is not what has
occurred, existence is the realm of human
possibilities, everything that man can become,
everything that hes capable of. Novelists draw
up the map of existence by discovering this or
that human possibility.- Milan Kundera
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Are novels too complex?Can we still read
them?Books require an immense amount of
energy. It is not just pages. It is ideas,
observations, many narrative lines...I have no
faith in the survival of the novel. It is almost
over. The world has changed and people do not
have the time to give that a book requires. -
V.S. NaipaulWinner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for
Literature
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Are novels too complex?Can we still read
them?If we citizens do not support our
artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the
altar of crude reality and we end up believing in
nothing and having worthless dreams
(xiv).-Yann Martin, winner of the 2002 Mann
Booker Prize
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BibliographyAbbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge
Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge Cambridge
University Press, 2005.Kundera, Milan. The Art
of the Novel. New York Harper and Row,
1988.Martell, Yann. Life of Pi. New York
Harcourt Books, 2001.Smiley, Jane. Thirteen
Ways of Looking at the Novel. New York Anchor
Books, 2005.