n  Towards a Poetics of The Noveln

Here is a nice pseudo-scholarly jaunt through what 'aspects' go towards the creation of the Novel-form. Forster isolates a few of these aspects and discusses them, but the the 'rhythm' of the lectures, to use his own terminology, is one of insufficiency. It is as if Forster knows that the framework would collapse ever so easily with the slightest departure from his selected story-line or plot-structure or lecture-structure.

As I said, there is much jauntiness here, and this fragility of the structure being built, I felt, was the essential moral Forster was trying to convey. All the allusions to pseudo-scholarship and all the self-reference using that ironic title seems to be meant to guide the student to an appreciation that the novel is an amorphous mass -- the image that begins the lectures -- and any shape we might try to impose on it is contingent on our own imagination. We might come up with very nice shapes to which we can make most of literature conform, but we can do that only by 'pruning' down each of our examples to fit our model. And by doing that we are in effect compromising our original intention.

But, as Forster says, the pseudo-scholars have to make money and write dissertations. And for that some pruning should be allowed for them. Forster gives us an eloquent demonstration of some very fine pruning. He even manages to be serious about the whole exercise at times.

Aristotle in the Spotlight

In the end, my major learning from these lectures is Forster's understanding of an elementary difference between Drama and the Novel. And here we see a fundamental concept behind these lectures -- an indirect attack on Aristotle, the Father of Criticism -- it might even be justifiable to say that much of modern criticism is just a series of footnotes on A's work. And thus on all of subsequent literary criticism as well!

Now, by delineating the difference between Drama and the Novel, Forster is telling us that all these strict frameworks and critical apparatus is best suited only for the Dramatic form of story-telling, as A originally intended them to be used, where Beauty can come on stage and cover up for the deficiencies and sacrifices caused from this limited perspective of life-in-fullness.

The Novel on the other hand is a more organic form and is much more suited to real life. And real life can have no rules. Neither can the novel. We can expect things of it, but if it satisfies those expectations, suddenly the reality is lost and it becomes merely a charming stage, an artificial enactment.

That is why great novelists defy conventions, and that is why great critics can be so lax with them when they do. Forster gives us a glimpse on how to be both.

In picking this up I thought it might give me more and better tools with which to understand what fiction I like and why. I admit that in starting in this direction I didn’t look around at what had been written of this nature, either by critics, publishers or novelists, before making a choice. I simply happened upon this and decided to give it a try. What little I have read of E.M. Forster I have not loved, so I can’t use that as my reasoning. This approach is not typical for me. I am usually more methodical and analytical in my choices.

Aspects of a Novel is a series of lectures that Forster gave at Cambridge. I must say that I did not benefit significantly from reading it. Yes, there were some concepts introduced that I found helpful, but I struggled with much of it, sometimes because I had never read the novels used as examples, sometimes because I had read the example novels so long ago that I didn’t remember enough to allow me to relate to the points Forster was making, and sometimes because I simple didn’t understand what he was trying to convey. So, my rating was as much of a reflection of where I was in taking on this book as it was the book itself. Others could certainly get much more value. I will definitely make additional efforts of this type, so if you have something you found really beneficial, please share.

فورستر به‌طور خاص درباره رمان و این قالب خاص صحبت نمی‌کنه. بیش‌تر داره تعدادی از رمان‌ها رو براساس چند ویژگی که خودش درنظر گرفته بررسی می‌کنه. چیزهایی می‌شه ازش گرفت اما اندک.

What are the most important aspects of a novel? The answer to this question is very personal and may vary, but for Edmund Morgan Forster, author of A Room with a View and A Passage to India, the most important aspects of a novel can be narrowed down to seven:

• The Story - what happens
• The People - to whom the story happens
• The Plot - why the story happens
• Fantasy - element of surprise
• Prophecy - connection to a human experience
• Pattern - atmosphere/theme
• Rhythm - expansion of the theme

This book is based on a series of lectures delivered by Forster in 1927, Ulysses had already been written, but the most unconventional narratives of the post-war, not to mention post-modern, had not, and those narratives challenge some of the rigid notions about plot, story, and pattern of the time. However, it is very interesting to see what the author considered to be indispensable to a well-written book. The notions of flat (comic and caricature) characters versus round (developed and tragic) characters are still relevant to the analysis of fictional characters. I would recommend this to fiction writers and readers alike.

"And to the end of time, good literature will be made around the notion of a wish."

The king died. Then the queen died.
The king died. Then the queen died of grief.
The king died. Then some say the queen died of grief.

That little classic ditty above explaining Story, Plot, and Mystery, is an original from this book and from the singular mind of E. M. Forster.

Aspects of the Novel is based on a series of lectures given by him at Trinity College Cambridge in 1927. He decided to eschew formal literary terms in order that he could talk about "aspects" of the novel in a fresh way, without all the heavy scholarship (and without pseudo-scholarship, he also noted). A decision that I'm sure was much appreciated by students, otherwise awash in professorial pomp.

Reading this a hundred years later and being no scholar but only a frequent and happy novel-reader, I too, like Trinity College students, very much appreciated his approach. It was an eye-opener, exactly what I was looking for: expanding my appreciation of the novel and novelists.

Forster recounts seven aspects: story, plot, character, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm. In each of them are valuable insights for gaining more pleasure and depth from novels. I am a little sorry that some of his terms were his own and are not in use at large. (Prophecy was an especially fascinating aspect and I am curious what term is used to describe it in traditional scholarship, if it is.) But ultimately, the exact terminology doesn't matter, the concept does.

When Forster writes about "fantasy" in novels. he's not using the term like we use it today to indicate a major genre. Rather, Forster's term is anything that doesn't happen in real life, or at least anything we generally agree doesn't happen. When a novelist uses it, Forster says the novelists is asking the reader to be willing to "pay extra" for admittance into the tale. The fantasy and the payment can be big or small. Under this wider definition, I was surprised to observe that I had encountered a lot of pieces of fantasy in novels I had recently read, especially surprising because I don't generally read Fantasy. Even in Jane Eyre where all spooky things were explained away as real, there remained "Jane! Jane! Jane!" by Rochester. By Bronte including it and leaving it fantastical, the reader will and should think about its purpose, and even consider if it is necessary.

A more complicated example where I used Forster's fantasy aspect to review a recent novel I read was To the Wedding by John Berger; I sent it through the Forster fantasy aspect filter. It is not considered a fantasy novel but the story is fundamentally dependent on a fantastical premise: a blind Greek seer. That's more than a mere nod to Classic Greek Literature, it's a fantasy begging the question why, why is that necessary? The answer to that question will change the novel. Either you believe Berger used the Greek like the Greeks would, a throwback artistic device of drama so as to make a parallel of AIDS with epic tragedy. Or, this is my take, it indeed serves to elevate the story by comparison but does not require the visions to be real; they are visions--visions evoking what would have been and what was lost to the disease. Epic, indeed.

Forster did a lot of fun things in this work, beyond the aspects. He was opinionated, witty, and gossipy. He was also humble and self-deprecating. I also found this helpful: for each aspect, he began with a special requirement needed from a reader in order to access full appreciation of the novel. Like for "prophesy", which in his definition here is not foretelling the future and not necessarily religious, the reader must bring humility and leave behind humor. Interesting, no?

It wasn't all smooth sailing, and not simply when the concepts were complex but sometimes because Forster was writing, as one would expect, like a novelist would, not always revealing the full definition up front but rather slowly building toward it. (The work isn't long, so nothing was a long, excruciating build.) Luckily he also used a lot of examples from novels, mostly well-known ones--up to 1927 of course--to illustrate his meaning. I made lots of notes from the text in my Reading Journal, and then wrote my thoughts and put recent novels I've read through the Foster filter, as I called it. I was fired up by what I was learning and didn't want to miss a morsel.

Now, he said some things that you may heartily not agree with about certain works and writers--some real zingers, in fact--but that's all the more reason to read this. It will have you in a deep conversation with Forster about something you love: novels.

Highly recommend!

An avowed classic on literary craft which somehow did not resonate with me. Due for a re-read.

En serie föreläsningar som Forster höll 1927, och alltså långt innan 'narratologin' skapades, med sin exakthet i analys av prosa. Något sånt hittar man inte här. Den första känslan är ett löst kåserande kring litteratur, men vagheten till trots, fördjupas analysen kapitel för kapitel. Forster tar också exempel från en hel rad klassiska verk, och några kanske mer bortglömda verk.

Helhetsintrycket är skön, som ett 'nytt' sätt att se och tänka om läsande och skrivande. Och det är alltid önskvärt och berikande.

با اینکه اقای یونسی انسان دانشمند و مترجم توانایی هستند اما بسیار پیچیده و دور از فهم بود. البته کتاب متن سخنرانی فورستر است که دستی مثلا به سر رویش کشیده اند و کتاب شده است.

I didn't understand precisely what he meant by fantasy vs prophecy, and I have a feeling that it could be useful. But as a whole, it was a thoughtful take on writing, freed from historicizing or putting everyone on a timeline. Some really interesting thoughts about novels and their relationship to plot, especially.

half of the time I was thinking "why are we talking about this?"

"Aspetti del romanzo" nasce come un ciclo di conferenze tenute da Forster nel 1927 a Cambridge, da qui il tono piuttosto colloquiale del saggio. In quest'opera l'autore si ripropone di indagare i diversi aspetti del romanzo inglese, che divide in sette lezioni: il racconto; le persone; la vicenda; fantasia e profezia; disegno e ritmo.
Che cos'è un romanzo? Il romanzo è innanzitutto un racconto, il racconto di una storia, in cui in cui l'autore, che è l'unico creatore della storia, può decidere o meno se seguire un filo cronologico (come necessariamente avviene nella vita reale) ma ha l'obbligo di dare credibilità agli attori e alle vicende che mette sulla scena, se vuole che queste colpiscano l'interesse del lettore, fruitore ultimo dell'opera d'arte.
Gli attori sono, per Forster, le persone e, poiché il loro creatore è a sua volta umano, esiste nella Letteratura una relazione così intima tra il romanziere e il soggetto da egli creato da non essere riscontrabile in nessuna altra forma d'arte. Ma cosa rende più o meno credibili gli attori di un romanzo? Il fatto che il loro creatore ne sveli, tra le pagine, non solo la vita esteriore, ma anche e soprattutto la vita più intima, fatta di pensieri, "pure passioni", gioie, dolori, dubbi, incertezze di cui nella vita reale il pudore impedirebbe di fare parola. Nel romanzo, se il creatore vuole, possiamo conoscere perfettamente le persone e, in questo, la Narrativa è più vera della Storia. Perché ciò accada, bisogna però anche distinguere tra diversi tipi di attori: ci sono attori ad una dimensione, senza rilievo, che poco colpiranno l'interesse del lettore, e attori a tutto tondo, come ad esempio i protagonisti dei romanzi di Jane Austen. Dice Forster: "la prova che un personaggio è a tutto tondo consiste nella sua capacità di sorprenderci in maniera convincente. Se non ci sorprende mai, egli è piatto; se non ci convince, è piatto e finge di essere a tutto tondo. L'autentico personaggio a tutto tondo ha in sé l'elemento incalcolabile della vita: la vita nelle pagine di un libro."
Forster prosegue poi analizzando altri aspetti che interagiscono nella creazione del romanzo: il punto di vista, interno o esterno, la scelta della vicenda da raccontare. Di particolare interesse il capitolo riguardante la Fantasia e la Profezia, due forze che entra no in gioco quando la storia narrata trascende le esperienze che a ciascuno di noi potrebbero capitare. Sappiamo che un libro non è vero, ma ci aspettiamo che sia verosimile. Quando non lo è, la lettura richiede uno sforzo di adattamento maggiore. Inevitabile la speculazione conclusiva su quali saranno le sorti del romanzo del futuro ma lascio a voi il piacere di vedere se le conclusioni che ha tratto Forster quasi un secolo fa siano state o meno profetiche.
Ho trovato questo saggio molto interessante.. Sicuramente l'avrei apprezzato di più, conoscendo meglio tutte le opere e gli autori citati da Forster nei suoi esempi: dall'Ulisse di Joyce, a "Tristram Shandy", da "I viaggi di Gulliver" a George Eliot, e ancora Jane Austen, Walter Scott, Melville, Gide, Dostoevsky, le sorelle Brönte, Dickens... Ce ne sarebbe da compilare una Listopia! Concludo però ammettendo che preferisco di gran lunga il Forster romanziere al Forster saggista.
Voto: ★★★½

There is a Note at the front of this edition (1954) that sets the tone for the remainder: a series of lectures at Trinity College Cambridge. One longish paragraph that, like a proper appetizer, creates a hunger for what will follow. Foster tells us that words like 'of course,' 'curiously enough,' and 'so to speak,' have been left where each appeared which may distress the sensitive reader, but asks the reader to remember that 'if these words were removed others, perhaps more distinguished, might escape through the orifices they left, and that since the novel is itself often colloquial it may possibly withhold some of its secrets from the graver and grander streams of criticism, and may reveal them to backwaters and shallows.' Foster lets us know at once how he will approach the Clark lecture series: with humanness and humor. The lectures are every bit as entertaining as Forster's novels, and writers can add to their understanding of elements. In lecture sequence, there is story (and then, and then) that what happens next? that saved Scheherazade from the sultan for a thousand and one nights. Characters, plot, etc. Although Forster hints that the novel may be a lower realm of art, and criticism perhaps lower, this book is instructive, insightful and darn fun to read. A pleasure, and I took notes. But I'm still not wild about Proust.