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The
Novel is Indestructible |
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The Novel is
Indestructible
 For
the umpteenth time in my life, I have heard
the death knell of the novel. The latest
tinkle comes from no less an eminence than V.S.
Naipaul, a Nobel Prize winner for
literature, who is quoted in the New York
Times:
"I
have no faith in the survival of the novel,
it is almost over," Naipul says.
"The world has changed and people do
not have the time to give that a book
requires."
Contemporary
eminence, however, does not guarantee truth
and crystal gazing is a practice open to the
most humble of prognosticators. Like me.
The
dictionary defines the novel as a fictional
prose narrative of considerable length,
typically having a plot that is unfolded by
the actions, speech and thoughts of the
characters. It seems a rather restrictive and
dry definition.
I
would embellish the definition by calling the
novel a long work of the imagination, whereby
the mind (or minds) of the author conveys a
story, a narrative in written words, however
structured, directly to a reader (another
mind). It is an intimate communication
process, a one-on-one exchange between people.
People
who read novels on a regular basis understand
that the written word, arguably, charges the
imagination with a more vivid imagery,
intensity and involvement than any other
medium. I mean no disparagement of the audible
and visual media, but remember I am thumping
the drum for the survival of the novel.
 I
say the novel will not die. It is
indestructible. It is immortal. While the
literati might trace its modern origins to a
mere two hundred odd years, I trace its
origins to thousands of years.
By
my definition the Bible is a novel, a great
novel with rounded characters, many narrative
lines, ideas, insights and suspense and while
its authorship might be in question by some,
it is still a novel.
People
who read novels, even those that are badly
wrought, stereotypical and predictable, are,
even if they are unaware of it, questors,
seekers of insights and answers, explorers who
wish to plumb the minds, the passions, the
good and evil inherent in the human species,
and to journey with them to places beyond
their own environments, seeking adventure,
exotic experiences, knowledge, understanding
and hints on ways to cope with the exigencies,
the joy and horrors of life.
How
many of us can really divine the thoughts of
others? The novel, through the writer's
imagination, gives his or her characters an
inner life, complete with thoughts, actions
and ideas and often with telling intuitive
accuracy.
While
it may be hard to quantify I am certain that
the reading of novels has greatly enhanced my
life and understanding. I mention a few from
memory.
Through
novels like Jane Eyre, Pride and
Prejudice, Vanity Fair, Anna
Karenina, Madame Bovary, The Red
and the Black, Nana, Of Human
Bondage, Of Time and the River and Ulysses,
I learned a great deal about women. (Insight
about women by the way and visa versa is not
restricted by the author's gender.)
Through
novels like David Copperfield, Oliver
Twist, Great Expectations, The
Jungle Books, Look Homeward Angel, Farewell
to Arms, The Portrait of the Artist as
a Young Man, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry
Finn, Treasure Island, and yes, my
old boyhood friends like the series, Bomba
the Jungle Boy, The Boy Allies and The
Hardy Boys, I validated my own strivings
and expectations as I grew from boyhood to
manhood.
Through
novels like The Great Gatsby, The
Way We Live Now, and yes, The
Carpetbaggers, and numerous others, I
learned about ambition, its illusions,
pitfalls and corrosive nature.
Through
novels like All Quiet on the Western Front,
War and Peace, The Naked and the
Dead, The Young Lions, The Spy
Who Came in from the Cold, I learned about
the meaning of war and its consequences.
Through
novels like Main Street, Babbit,
Appointment in Samarra and The
Magnificent Ambersons, and many
contemporary novels, I learned about small
town life, its comforts, joys, prejudices and
pitfalls.
Through
novels like The Sound and the Fury, Other
Voices Other Rooms, Lie Down in
Darkness, I learned about the South and
its special regional identity.
Through
novels like Fathers and Sons, Pere
Goriot, The Good Earth, The Kite
Runner, and scores of others I learned
about other worlds, other countries.
Through
The Fifth Child, I was introduced to
the idea that the virus of evil may be a
genetic aberration programmed into the human
species.
I
could go on and on, but I hope I made my
point. Note I did not name authors, but only
the titles of their work, their creations,
their novels, since each story is an idea unto
itself. Many would choose different works, in
different genres from science fiction to
mysteries, to westerns and romance novels and
numerous others. And some might be too
embarrassed to admit that these stories, many
of them clichéd, repetitive and dismissed by
highbrow critics, might have, in some way,
changed their lives.
The
power of words, assembled in a novel, by
people who choose, by nature, calling or
necessity, to be novelists, cannot be denied.
What they create, in my view, will not die as
long as human beings thirst for greater
insight and understanding of their species.
All
life is a story and the heart and soul of a
novel is based upon story and what is story,
but the need, the human compulsion, to know
the unknowable, which means in story terms
"what happens next."
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