Subject:
Novels-I
Lesson: The Novel
Novel
as a term
The word 'novel' is an
adjective, it stands for that which is 'new' and does not resemble anything formerly 'known
or used'. It suggests a thing or process 'not previously identified' just as
the transmission of a novel corona virus.
Furthermore, the word denotes something 'original and striking in conception or
style'. For instance, the Indian government's novel strategies to combat the
corona pandemic. Refer to: Merriam Webster.
But 'novel' is also a
noun. It is a term used to label 'an invented prose narrative that is usually
long and complex and deals especially with human experience through a usually
connected sequence of events. It refers to a literary genre.
Now, we deal with the
term 'Novel' considering its literary
meaning at some length.
What
is a Novel?
A novel is a piece of
prose fiction of a reasonable length. As a genre, a novel defies definition.
For Terry Eagleton then, a novel is 'less a genre than an anti-genre'( The English Novel: An Introduction.
Wiley-Blackwell).
Eagleton asserts that a
novel as a literary genre ' cannibalizes other literary modes and mixes bits
and pieces promiscuously together'(1). He adds that the novel 'quotes, parodies
and transforms other genres'. The novel is a 'mighty melting pot, a mongrel
among literary thoroughbreds' remarks Eagleton.
The form of a novel is
'particularly associated with the middle class, it is partly because the
ideology of that class centres on a dream of freedom' from old conventions- the
old certainties of God and old autocratic order.
Nature
Most commentators agree
that the novel has its roots in the literary form identified as 'romance' (2).
The romance of the bourgeoisie-which is the novel- is different. It is a 'disenchanted' romance
that has to 'negotiate the prosaic world of modern civilization'
where 'money and marriage / Sex and property' are the themes from start to
finish.
History and
Associations
The novel was born at
the same time as modern science, and shares its sober, secular, hard-headed,
investigative spirit, along with its suspicion of classical authority.
In The Rise of the Novel Ian Watt finds the reasons for emergence of
the novel in the eighteenth-century( as modern English novel) in the
middle-class interest in individual psychology, its secular and empiricist view
of the world nd its devotion to the concrete
and specific (11. qtd . Eagleton).
For many eighteenth
-century commentators the novel was a 'trashy piece of fiction fit only for
servants and females' observes Eagleton.
The label stood for writing that was merely somekind of 'sensationalist
fantasy' and due to this notoriety Henry
Fielding and Samuel Richardson called their works 'histories' instead.
The 'new' at this time meant either 'bogus or
trivial'. The novel was not considered 'literature' or 'art' at all but
inferior sort of production.
If the novel is the
modern epic , it is, in Georg Lukacs's famous phrase , 'the epic of a world
abandoned by God'. As the novel evolves it starts to shun the earlier attempts
to represent a 'coherent or logical ' universe and starts reflecting the
incoherent and fragmented world of man , especially in the aftermath of the
First World War. This is visible in the break-up of language, the collapse of
narrative, the dissolution of character and the disappearance of plot.
Moreover, the new devices foregrounding the unreliability of reports and the
clash of subjective standpoints, the fragility of value, and the elusiveness of
meaning make the novel a literary counterpart of the suffering humanity and its
failure to understand existence.
Examples for:
1. Break-up of language: Cervantes draws attention to the pomposity
of language used in 'romances' by constantly applying hyperbole and underlining it with humour not
only in the content of the dialogue but also in the farcical action and
slapstick comedy that makes the romance of Don Quixote descend to the level of
a picareque novel or an anti-bildungsroman.
2.The collapse of narrative: Marquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold where the ambiguity and equivocation
is so great that all versions contradict each other; In Don Quixote, the narrator constantly asks the reader to doubt to
the author and the whole narrative endeavour beginning at the outset.
3. Clash of subjective viewpoints: Cervantes' Don Quixote; Marquez' Chronicle.
4. The fragility of value: Don Quixote- he rescues the odd-job boy but
the rescue leads to greater problem as his master beats him more after the
knight leaves; the chivalric code does not mention money or routine
requirements but Don Quixote must pay for
his shelter and food; In Crime and
Punishment Raskolnikov who kills an
old pawnbroker to deliver humanity just as Napolean would have done.
5. Bare plot: Marquez's Chronicle
does not have a fully-developed ploy but a host of narratives and reports
surrounding a particular horrific incident; Similarly, Kafka's stories like 'The
Metamorphosis' do not bank on plot but a
pathological state of mind visible in a transformed world that appears surreal
and apparently illogical.
6. Dissolution of character: Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold. No
character is comprehensible, not even Santiago Nasar whose death is the focus
of the narrative as all reports and versions contradict each other leaving
nothing certain about the character of either the protagonists or the other
characters in the novella. Similarly, Raskolnikov's motives are so mixed up and
diverse that even he has difficulty pinning down his thoughts or expressing his
convictions. He constantly revises, reviews and contradicts his positions to
the extent that when he commits the murder it is more mechanical than
voluntarily done. The deed does not seem to be executed out of freewill but because
of a wheel set in motion and a series of coincidences and accidents propelling
the character to carry out a theory in practice.
Summary
and Pre-requisites:
Novel is a fictitious
prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action
with some degree of realism.
Required
terms/concepts:
1.
Difference between prose and
poetry/verse.
2.
Meaning of narrative
3.
Character
4.
Action
5.
Realism
Eagleton asserts, 'Not
all novels are realist, but realism is the dominant style of the modern English
novel'. Realistic characters are credible, well-rounded and psychologically
complex. Realism is organic to the bourgeoisie world with its belief in the
material realities of everyday existence; its impatience withthe formal, ceremonial
and metaphysical; its love for the palpable, measurable and utilitarian and its
insatiable curiosity about the individual self and its robust faith in
historical progress.
End notes:
Bildungsroman
/ˈbɪldʊŋzrəʊˌmɑːn/
noun
1.
a novel dealing with
one person's formative years or spiritual education.
"the book is a bildungsroman of sorts, as
Tull overcomes his abused childhood and learns about love".
picaresque
/ˌpɪkəˈrɛsk/
adjective
adjective: picaresque
1.
relating to an
episodic style of fiction dealing with the adventures of a rough and dishonest
but appealing hero.
"a picaresque adventure novel"
Origin
early 19th century: from French, from Spanish picaresco,
from pícaro ‘rogue’.
