In this chapter of 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel, Jane Smiley writes about the history of the novel. Not how the novel came to be (check out the Origins post from last week for that), but the evolution of the novel over time.

As readers we love that novels can take us to another time and place. As Smiley writes, "The novel has gotten us from the manners and mores of fourteenth-century Florence to those of twenty-first-century California, though, and done so by very modest means – not by argument, but by proposing simple, understandable choices about common dilemmas."

But have you considered the impact that same novel you're reading now might have had in its own time as well?

“The nature of the novel as entertainment encouraged, or as you might say trained, average readers to think in new ways about themselves and their circumstances. This is how novels work – they expose general problems and analyze them in terms of cause and effect.”

Today communication options run rampant but in other times the novel was a way not only to communicate, but to teach something about life as well.

“The novel promotes compromise, and especially promotes the idea that lessons can be learned, if not by the characters, then by the author and the reader.”

“The underlying assertion of almost every novel is that meaning exists and can be understood because it can be arranged in a sequence that then takes on some sort of logic.”

While I’ll be devoting four posts to the writing of one’s own novel later this week, this line struck me as such a perfect description of how a novel comes into being.

“The way in which novels are created – someone is seized by inspiration and then works out his inspiration methodically by writing, observing, writing, observing, thinking through, and writing again – is by nature deliberate, dominated neither by reason nor by emotion. “

So I’ll leave you with this somewhat ominous sounding thought, but one that also rings very true: “Those who don’t read novels are condemned to repeat the oldest mistakes in literature…”


All quotes are from Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel.


lara
My Story Writer
www.mywritingsoftware.com


Miss a post from the 13 Ways series? Find it here:
Kickoff: The 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel | The 13 Ways | I Hate Introductions | What is the Novel? | Who is the Novelist? | Origins: Where did the Novel Come From? | The Psychology of the Novel | Morality of the Novel | The Art of the Novel