The stuff and the staff of the novel:

‘Keeping Fiction on her feet’

Our tracing of the English poetic tradition is far from complete. In fact, it seems to be unending! However, what was intended to be a one-off appraisal of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ has shown that alternating between genres as we go along might well provide a welcome degree of variety. So let us, at this point, turn to the novel and ask ourselves what constitutes the novel as a literary form.

Just as poetry is made from verse the novel is made up of prose. At least, it traditionally has been and generally is. Of course, it could be objected that the earliest English novels were in verse, going all the way back to Chaucer's ‘Troilus and Criseyde'; and that many contemporary novels are in verse, such as Vikram Seth's ‘The Golden Gate.’ However, we could argue equally well that Shakespeare's ‘King Lear’ is a verse novel and that Wordsworth's ‘Michael’ is a short story in verse. So it is prudent to draw the line at accepting that the novel and poetry are primarily distinguishable as being prose and verse forms respectively.

Staple medium

Unlike verse, which is the language of song, prose is the language of ordinary speech. Which means that it is the language of ordinary life. This is why prose is the appropriate staple or medium of the novel. Because the first thing we look for in a novel is a true representation of life. It has to have the feel of real life. Henry James puts it very strongly when he says, “The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life.... The air of reality… seems to me to be the supreme virtue of a novel.”

Henry James

But this is not something that we need to learn only from the experts. There are those who are so far from claiming to be experts that they never care, let alone dare, to venture an opinion on the literary merit of a novel. Yet their shelves are stacked with the novels, ancient and modern, that they have read for the sheer enjoyment of the sense of real life these novels provide. And if you have ever experienced the thrill of having your own tentative efforts at novel writing praised by your nearest and dearest, is it not invariably due to their having been found to resemble real life? As James goes on to say, “Catching the very note and trick, the strange irregular rhythm of life, that is the attempt whose strenuous effort keeps Fiction on her feet.”

And that the term ‘Fiction’ has now come up is opportune. Because, although a novel must have the feel of real life, real life is precisely what it is not. It is only an illusion of life, it is all fictitious, a supreme fiction! That is why we call it a ‘novel’ in the first place. The word is taken from the Italian ‘novella’, abbreviated from ‘novella storia’ meaning ‘new story'. Thus it is related to our adjective ‘novel’, which means not just ‘new’ but ‘hitherto unknown’, ‘strikingly original'.

Imaginary representation

So a novel is an entirely new story, a fiction. Nevertheless, it has to emulate its older prose relative, history, which deals with actual reality, by simulating reality and providing the reader with an imaginary representation of life.

And this is why the novel has to have something that a short story, although it too is in prose, does not need to have, namely, a credible context. Before we have gone very into a novel we have to sense that we are amidst reality, in a real world. It may not be our world at all, not our society, not our country, not even our age, but the context must be so convincing that we are transported into it and become part of it. Reality does not have to be actuality or factualness. Nothing could be more remote from our own world than Middle-Earth, the scenario of ‘The Lord of the Rings'.

Yet, once we have got over the initial shock of its strangeness, we are so drawn into it that we cannot get away from it. We are fascinated by the landscape because of its effect on the characters; we are absorbed by the events and situations because they affect these characters; and we are taken up with the characters themselves, half of them not even human, because their thoughts, feelings, expressions and actions are typical of what we would expect of ourselves or of others in comparable landscapes and facing comparable events and situations. Reading the ‘Ring’ is like leaving the terra firma of the shore for a plunge in the sea. Once in the water we feel so much at home in it that we are in no hurry to get back to land.

But this is true of any novel which has a credible context to supply the texture of real life. Perhaps the greatest master of context is Jane Austen. She generates a prodigious amount of felt life within her chosen settings, however rarefied these may seem to be. This is because she weaves such a complex tapestry of private, family and social experience amid which her characters perform their actions and interactions. The myriad details that make up the overall ambience, for instance, of ‘Emma's’ Hartfield are depicted with such realism and concreteness that we become completely absorbed in the affairs of that little world.

Steady conclusion

In fact, you fall under its spell so completely that after a time you begin to wonder about the purpose of all this density. At this point, however, the story begins to take shape, having emerged virtually unnoticed out of the context, and moves steadily on to its conclusion.

But a credible context, indispensable though it may be, is not the be-all and end-all of a novel. And this brings us to the next great requirement of a novel, namely its story. That is, after all, what a novel should be - an original story, a narration of events that develop, unravel and get resolved. And this is the other reason for all those book-lovers reading all those novels - it is for the absorbing stories that they contain. If a novel lacks a convincing story, the richness of its context is of no avail. This is why, for instance, ‘The Near and the Far’, LH Myers’ multi-volume novel set in the India of Akbar's day, though full of contextual detail and philosophical insight, has never been a popular success. Few to whom I used to recommend it for its sheer educational value got to the end of it. There just was not enough of a story line or a tangible plot to maintain their interest. On the other hand, Paul Scott's ‘The Raj Quartet’, set in 20th century colonial India, is both dense in its ambience and has a story that convincingly straddles all four of its volumes.

Thus a credible context and a credble story are both necessary to a novel.The novels of Charles Dickens rarely fail to satisfy this twofold requirement, which is why they are so popular.

But this brings us to the final great requirement of a great novel. Apart from giving us a convincing representation of life and a compelling tale, it has to have a moral dimension. What does this mean? In his essay, ‘Morality and the Novel’, DH Lawrence explains: “The business of art is to reveal the relation between man and his circumambient universe, at the living moment...And morality is that delicate, for ever trembling and changing balance...Now here we see the beauty and the great value of the novel...If a novel reveals true and vivid relationships, it is a moral work, no matter what the relationships may consist in...The novel is a perfect medium for revealing to us the changing rainbow of our living relationships.’

The point to be taken here from Lawrence is that the great novel dislodges the paradigm of our customary outlook on life. It affords us a new perspective on life together with an upward adjustment of our system of values. It is here that the all-important moral element of the novel comes into play.

Context, story and morality, then, are the three basic requirements for a great novel. Everything else, style, characterisation and so on, are only relevant inasmuch as they contribute to these requirements. In our future consideration of individual novels these criteria will, we hope, help us to see to what extent these works live up to their reputations.