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E434: British Novel to 1900 Advice on Reading Novels Alfred J. Drake. Office: Classroom, Thurs 6-7 / Ph: 714-434-1612 1. During your reading sessions, jot down the names of characters -- you will be surprised at how much of a novel's plot and significance you can connect to names. To some extent, the same is true of places. Furthermore, it would help to write a brief plot summary for each chapter or major section. It is easy to forget a novel's characters and even its important plot developments, so readers must take extra steps to remember what they take in. Add to this fact the need to register insights as they occur,* and you have the twin rationale for our journal requirement. * One of the best tips on learning I can offer is that it is invaluable to keep a notebook or laptop handy while you study. An insight once set down on paper or on disk becomes a permanent basis for further reflection, a text to which you may respond. Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, in A Guide of the Perplexed, writes that knowledge comes to us not by patient accumulation but rather in lightning-like flashes that disappear as quickly as they came. Fail to honor those illuminations when they occur, and you lose them unless and until some happy accident brings on the same “flash.” Contrast the implications of this learning-model with the dreary old “exam cram” mentality many of us were taught in high school, and you'll immediately see the benefits. When you learn only with a view to passing exams, the kind of learning done nestles “forgetting” within its bosom like a serpent, and strips humanistic study of most of its value. 2. Reading a novel straight through is probably not the best method -- most of us need several days of partial reading to immerse ourselves in the universe the author has created. Remember that many novels during the 18th and 19th centuries were written for serial publication -- readers looked forward to magazine installments of the latest chapters, and only after serial publication was a novel issued in book form. 3. Watch a film version of your current novel if one is available. Masterpiece Theater has made many excellent versions of 18th and 19th Century novels, and of course there are some fine Hollywood versions as well. Although novels were meant to be read, not seen as is the case with drama, our own era is blessed with opportunities to supplement reading with seeing. Charles Dickens himself gave intensely dramatic readings of his own work, to the delight of Victorian audiences. A good film rendition should send you back to the novel itself with renewed insight. Advice on Writing about Novels 4. Especially when you're writing about a novel, your first attempt at a thesis is a trap just as much as a necessity. The fact that your final draft will be deductive in format – it will state an argument concisely and then proceed to lay out the details that best make your case—shouldn't keep you from treating the writing process inductively. If you're dealing with a 300-400 page novel, it's very likely that grand initial claims about the consistency of the author's handling of a theme or manner of representation will trap you into making claims even you don't find convincing. After all, the point of good criticism isn't to prove something beyond doubt; it's to send your readers back to the text with renewed interest on the basis of compelling insights about what might be “going on” in that text. Stating allegedly scientific facts about a novel is hardly an auspicious way to accomplish such a task—you'll just end up twisting every passage you encounter to suit your preconceived notions. 5. Don't try to deal with everything. That's an unrealistic goal even when you're writing about a lyric poem or a short story. Instead, focus on a limited number of events, characters and their relationships, and themes. Issues to Consider for Journal Writing 6. The novel is a “realistic” genre -- that is, most novelists try to recreate for their audience the most artistically relevant aspects of the “world” in which that audience already lives. To what extent do you think realism is the goal of the author you're currently reading? If the author adheres to realism as a basic tenet, what exactly is realistic about the author's handling of characters, events, and so forth, and to what further end is that goal pursued? If the author departs from realism, in what regard does he do so? What purpose is served by the departure? 7. Character and environment are both important in most novels. Which seems more important in the novel you're currently reading, and why? Further, how does your author create a character for us – does a complete sense of characters get conveyed with a few quick strokes, or does that sense develop gradually? Do the characters change, or do they remain stable from beginning to end? The same “how” question might be asked concerning events and places—how exactly does the author generate a sense of places and happenings – are we presented with a patient unfolding of details, or with bold selective strokes, or would you describe the method some other way? 8. The need to build up a realistic universe doesn't necessarily make novel-writing an amoral enterprise. Indeed, some novels have a pretty strong moral or “didactic” edge. Is that the case with the novel you're currently reading? If so, what kind of moral assumptions does the author work within or explore? Are we encouraged to sympathize with a certain character or social group and vilify another, etc? Is the author challenging contemporary readers or reaffirming the consensus view on a given subject or action? Do you find your current novel's moral framework convincing? Why or why not? To put this in academic terms, we might say that many novels carry out a “task”—that is, they work at influencing the culture within which they are written and either subscribe to or reject or wish to modify a value system they cannot simply ignore.
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