Death of the Novel Part II

The Death of the Novel continues to be broadcast. We surveyed the outlines of the “movement” in the last blog, and I want to get a little more specific in this one. What leads people to say that novel is dead or dying? Why did John Barth write something like “The Literature of Exhaustion”? And why were several other critics around that time asserting that the novel had come to the end of the road?

Barth’s essay spends a lot of time talking about creativity. He focuses a great deal on the writing of Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentinian writer Barth admires and on his innovations as a writer. He appended a preface to the article and says that it is often misquoted, and I’ll agree with him to a degree. He is speculating on where the novel will go more than saying it is dead; and he confesses that he isn’t sure. His most direct move toward the subject is when he says that the novel may be at the end of its primacy as an art form:  that like the epic poem or the sonnet sequence, the novel may sink to a secondary place in literature and not be the most read or admired art form. It may “die” in this sense. Still, he does seem to think it is in decline and danger due to lack of creative paths for it to take.

 

Barth holds to a modern view of the novel, and this is part of his concern over the continued life and health of the novel.  Modernism held to a sort of sacrosanct view of the literary canon. There were certain novels that were “serious” literature and certain novels that were “popular” literature. Popular literature did not really matter. The line of novels that began with Pamela by Samuel Richard and included greats like Dickens, the Bronte sisters, Joyce and Kafka, and all the other names that cluster around what was called “great” literature as Barth saw it, was starting to dribble out.

Borges

Barth sees some hope in the work of Borges. It’s creative, quirky, surprising, and innovative but still operates within the grand tradition of novel writing. But, he asks, how many people like the Argentine novelist are writing? And who could be as creatively daring as Borges?

I will agree that Borges is remarkable. His story “The Garden of the Forking Paths,” is one of the most amazing stories I’ve read and one of my favorites; the same is true for “The Gospel of Mark.” They are dazzlingly creative. I would have never thought of either of them, and they are written to surprise and delight. Very few people (certainly not I) could write stories as innovative and brilliant as these. This is the source of some of Barthes pessimism.

But is the grand tradition necessary? Does one have to write a certain way and create novels that carry on the tradition of Wuthering Heights or A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man? If the definition of what is a novel is restricted, there is not very much room to move around. You may be creative, but one can only imitate the "great" novels that went before your own. The canal gets more narrow and filled with more and more silt as time goes along. Not many will be able to craft a novel that will sail well in such circumstances.

So it is that the death of the novel seemed to loom. The idea of a grand tradition—the idea of “fine art” and “great novels,” as opposed to inferior popular literature limits the range of possibilities for new works of art. Hamlet lamented that virtue cannot “inoculate our old stock.” We think of vaccination when we use the world “inoculate.” Shakespeare (and his audience) would have thought about cattle breeding. To inoculate was to bring fresh, healthy, strong animals in to interbreed with a herd of animals that was becoming infertile from inbreeding. Barth seemed to think that the novel was dying out because it was to inbred, its possibilities almost exhausted, its creative resources growing thinner and thinner.

This could be the case—unless the old stock can be inoculated in the old sense of the word—unless new and healthier specimens can be brought in to restore life and vitality. More on this in the next blog.

Check out my newest short novel  ShadowCity, a paranormal story of a world that exists as a shadow of our own and the quest of three people to keep darkness from completely engulfing it.

Visit my Writer's Page for more choices, great reads, and innovative tales.

Death of the Novel, Part I

One of Simon and Garfunkel’s early hit songs, “The Dangling Conversation,” had in it these memorable lines:

                                    Yes, we speak of things that matter

                                    With words that must be said

                                    “Can analysis be worthwhile?”

                                    “Is the theater really dead?”

In light of a couple of recent articles I’ve come across, those lines makes me think of how critics and writers always predict the demise the novel. Is the novel really dead? A lot of modern critics would have us think the novel is dead—or, if not dead, on its last legs and soon to be deceased. I would like to explore this topic a little bit in a couple of blogs. It would seem that merely saying, “No the novel is not dead” would be sufficient if you don’t hold to that particular view (which I don’t). But the issue is complex and, based on assumptions that are complicated and intricate.

The idea that the novel is dying, that writers have reached the end of a genre, which may be proclaimed “the death of the novel,” is nothing new. Its demise has been predicted many times. In 1967, novelist and literary critic John Barth wrote a much-anthologized essay called “The Literature of Exhaustion,” published in The Atlantic later that year and widely reprinted.

Barth thought that novelists had exhausted all possible forms and plots and could only imitate other

John Barth

novels and do nothing really original. Of course, his sentiments were nothing new. Novelist Jose Ortegay Gasset wrote The Decline of the Novel in 1925; critic Walter Benjamin in 1930 penned Crisis of the Novel—the list could go on. All were certain the novel was on its way out and would be replaced with other literary forms. All were certain no one could come up with any new ideas that would keep the novel . . . well, novel.

Here’s a point that may seem esoteric but I think bears mentioning. The novel is a new art form. It’s only been around for about 300 years, as opposed to theater and poetry, which have been around for thousands of years. In fact, novel means “something new or unique,” which is what the form of a long prose narrative centered on conflicts characters faced and how they change or don’t change in the course of the conflict constituted in the later 1600s, when Samuel Richardson penned what it generally considered the first novel, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. It was something innovative and brand new. Perhaps since the novel is new, in terms of other literary forms, many think it’s just a fad—a 300 year-old fad, but what’s 300 years in the history of literature?

It can also be said that these claims are obviously not true. 

Contemporary novels like Gone Girl, The Lovely Bones, Wolf Hall, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Blood Meridian, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, and a host of others have sold well, been made into films, and (most importantly) have demonstrated innovative technique, forms of narration, strategies for writing, and modes of language use. The examples I gave here are from the grouping called “literary fiction,” but add in popular fiction—Steven King’s novels, The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (again, the list could go on and on); add what is called “popular fiction”—and the novel seems not near death but very spry and quite capable of running a marathon.

So why all the predictions of the novel’s demise? 

As I said, the reasons are complex. They are related to how certain authors wanted to define the genre of novel; to a bit of egotism on the part of authors who thought their creations were the be-all and end-all of literature; on chauvinism and Western-centric ideology; on misunderstandings of human creative capacity; on old-fashioned intellectual arrogance and undemocratic elitism.

The resilience of the novel’s form is apparent in the works listed above. The various novels categorized as literary fiction break barriers and take novel writing into new, fresh territory. Many were written by women (as are a good chunk of the novels that are highly popular today). Some come from writers of non-Western cultures.

And while I think the predictions are wrong, looking at them is instructive. The next couple of blogs will tackle the subject of novel writing and will speculate on the why. And we’ll go from the why to the what. How will the novel continue to change and grow as the years progress? 

Check out some of my novels at my Writer's Page. If reading is part of your New Year's resolve, or if you simply want to start the year out with innovative books to read, I recommend The Gallery, Strange Brew, The Prophetess, and The Sorceress of the Northern Seas.

Check out the Horror Maiden's review of my book, Strange Brew. 

Read my interview with Micro-Shock.

Have a happy New Year.