Talk:Novel

Argh! I can't take it any longer - I'm going to rewrite this article from scatch. CGS 23:04 12 Jul 2003 (UTC).

Decameron and Novella

Chinasaur cut The Decameron from the list, with the comment

Decameron is a collection of folktales flimsily linked together; I don't think it qualifies.

I restored it. One of the points of this page is that there is disagreement about what constitutes a novel. Maybe I should make the controversy a bit clearer, as in the First novel in English article. Gdr 07:56, 2004 Apr 19 (UTC)

That's fine if you really think it belongs here, but even if you're stretching the definitions I'd still say this is way on the margin of what could qualify. I don't know if this was part of your point, but I'll note that nothing written on the First novel in English would seem to qualify Decameron. The picaresque style mentioned there is a series of disconnected stories about one character, quite different from the Decameron, a series of unrelated folk tales drawn from prexisting sources and strung together within a loose story framework that is more historical/mystical than narrative. --Chinasaur 17:16, Apr 19, 2004 (UTC)

The Decameron has a "frame story" which links the tales together. I agree that it stretches the definition of "novel", but I don't think it exceeds it. No literary form has precise boundaries: at the margins there are works which are ambiguous (novel or collection? short novel or short story? poetic novel or epic poem?).

And if you exclude The Decameron you would also have to exclude If on a winter's night a traveller by Italo Calvino. But everyone calls that a novel. Gdr 15:36, 2004 May 13 (UTC)

Interesting point, this does seem to be a fine line because I think I would count the Calvino book. In IOAWNAT there are for one thing alternating chapters, so roughly half the book is devoted to what seems to be a single narrative (in second person singular). Most of all though, IOAWNAT is, in some sense, a cohesive book with a single guiding voice, though it's narrative may be postmodernly disjointed. Decameron has no comparable sense of cohesion; it is essentially what I have already described: a collection of folk-tales linked with short excursions into the frame tale.

The salient feature of the frame tale of the Decameron is that nothing happens; no central problem arises (other than escaping the plague, which is resolved by the end of the introduction), no characters develop or have meaningful relationships, etc.. That's why most consider the frame tale more of historical interest than of narrative value. If I had to summarize the "story" of the frame tale, I could probably give you two sentences worth reading (for narrative interest). If I tried to stretch it into anything more than that, you would find it incredibly boring ("Fiammetta passed the crown to Dioneo, and Emilia sang a song, and Dioneo picked a new topic, and they all danced and ate dinner, and they woke up and walked around the villa, and they each told a story according to Dioneo's prescription, and then they laughed and Dioneo passed the crown to etc. etc. etc.).

Oh well, that's my input, so do with it what you will. I reiterate that if Decameron is going to stay, then I think Arabian Nights should be added, despite the difficulties of determining an author/date of writing. --Chinasaur 17:36, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

I'll remove it. Gdr 13:45, 2004 May 16 (UTC)

Have you readed Quevedo's El buscón? It's not a serie of disconnected stories about one character.

Nope, haven't read that one, but my understanding of it is that it covers the life of Don Pablo, so unless I'm missing something it does sound like a series of stories about one character. If your point is that they're not disconnected stories, then that is only supporting my original point even more... At any rate, hopefully we can all agree that Decameron is not a picaresque; it's a frame tale in which the frame is mostly of historical/sociological interest and has little narrative value. Here's some questions for you:

1. If the Brothers Grimm had placed a frame tale around their stories, for example an old German grandmother telling the stories, would that make the collectino a novel?
2. Why isn't the Arabian Nights on this list? If Decameron can even marginally qualify, then seems to me Arabian Nights should definitely be in there (admittedly I haven't read Arabian Nights...).

Yes, I'm supporting your original point. Decameron is not a novel, is a colection of novellas. Also, Lazarillo is too short to be considered a novel. It's a precedent of picaresque novel.

Also, I'm not too happy about the "and novella" allowance. If you mean, "and short novels", then you should say that; "novella" has a somewhat different connotation in its original Italian context. If you mean "and novella" in the original Italian sense, then you're pretty explicitly stretching the definition of novel. --Chinasaur 17:45, May 9, 2004 (UTC)

List of Novels

I moved my earlier comment into this heading:

Also, what is the idea behind the list of modern novels? Obviously this could spin completely out of control. I can see that right now we're restricting to some really representative/famous examples, but other people are likely to come along and decide they need to add to the list. --Chinasaur 17:37, May 9, 2004 (UTC)

In answer to Elf's question, yeah the list of novels seems like kind of a bad idea to me. So far I think we're doing okay though at keeping it to really decidedly well known examples. I think the guiding principle for any additions to the list in the 19th or 20th century categories should be overriding popular cultural awareness of the work. That's why I added C&P, Great Expectations, Les Mis, etc.: acknowledged "classics". I think to be on the list, a book should at least have an article too, so I motion to expell Fortunata y Jacinta. --Chinasaur 04:48, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I removed Gulliver's Travels from the list of 18c novels because it is not generally considered a novel by scholars and the list seemed the place for novels that are generally accepted as such. --Awadewit

Americans

Someone keeps changing the article to make Melville and Twain "English", as in they wrote in English. Seems better to me to specify that they're American as everyone can still infer that they wrote in English and that way no one will be mislead into thinking they are European. --Chinasaur 04:48, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

But for other novels the entry gives the language in which the novel was written. For example, Thomas More was English but wrote in Latin. Maybe it's not a good idea to give the language of the work or the nationality of the author. Gdr 15:36, 2004 Jul 20 (UTC)

Actually, some of the links for this are very messed up. For example, we have [[William Faulkner]] ... [[English language|American]], but [[Mario Vargas Llosa]], [[Spanish language|Spanish]]. May I suggest we give both nationality and language, and that we also don't link the same nationality and language over and over? -- Jmabel | Talk 17:47, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

Why don't we give just the nationality, as the language will (generally) be self-evident. And perhaps we should use "British" instead of "English" to make everything clearer. --Awadewit

Popping in here. The article confusingly labels James Joyce as "English". He was Irish, of course. The English tag, no doubt, refers to the language used to write Ulysses. But the context is not clear, and the unitiated may think that Joyce was an Englishman.

I am going to have to disagree with most of what has been written here. Firstly, as an article about novels, surely the language that is of primary importance is the language that the novel is composed in, rather than the provenance of the author. If a reader is interested in the origins of the author, they can follow the link to the article about that author. As we are concerned with the form of the novel, rather than the literary traditions of different countries (which are dealt with in their respective articles), it seems to me that the writer's nationality is of inferior importance. I certainly don't think the language will be self-evident by any means, Nabokov's novels in English, for example, or Le Morte D'Arthur- the title suggests it is in French. In the interests of clarity and relevance to this article, I believe it should be made clear that the languages given are those that the novels were written in, and if the reader wants authorial information, they can click the link to said author. Secondly, I believe it would be grossly erroneous to suggest that all authors originating from the British Isles should be labelled "British"- No such language exists, and no such country existed prior to 1707, or 1800 depending on how you interpret "Britain" (another reason not to use this label). This is also derogatory to Welsh, Scottish, English and possibly also to Irish literary traditions; they all have varied, multi-lingual histories and it is an extremely unfair generalization to plaster the billboard of "British" over them all. SilhouetteSaloon 20:42, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Very comprehensive definition of novel

I was really struck by how much the author(s) of this page have included under the definition and description of novel. I must say that I disagree. As an 18c scholar, I clearly have a bias, but most of the scholarship on the novel does not push it back further than Don Quixote, and rightly so, I feel. The already amorphous notion of the novel becomes even harder to circumscribe once you go beyond that text. Also, if you read some of the more literary historical works on the novel (such as J.P. Hunter's Before Novels and Lennard Davis' Factual Fictions) it becomes clear that the form could not have existed before journalism.

I wonder if there is some way to reflect this debate a little bit more evenly on the page? I wanted to post this comment and receive feedback before I made any dramatic changes or statements. --Awadewit

Try writing something and see how it goes. Wikipedia:Be bold in editing. There is certainly a need for an explanation of the historical origin of the word "novel" in the 17th century and of critical conceptions of the novel.

But a concept like "novel" doesn't belong to the people who coined it, nor even to academics who study it. It's true that as originally used, "novel" meant something more specific than "long work of fiction in prose" (and this article needs a section on that original use). But now the term "novel" is used very widely, encompassing long works of romance, science fiction, detective fiction, fictionalized history and autobiography, and experimental fiction of all sorts. With this loose modern concept in mind, we can look past the historical origin of the term "novel" and see many earlier examples that fall into the category.

You might like to take a look at the article on the first novel in English which considers some of these points. Gdr 16:36, 2004 Jul 20 (UTC)

Opening definition and list

I have altered some parts of the definition/characteristics of the novel in an effort to make it/them more precise. I also moved the exceptions to another paragraph to make the list easier to read. We can add more exceptions, but I thought that the list should stand alone. What does everyone else think? --Awadewit

Point of View

I think that this section should be moved to the "point of view (literature)" page because it is not a literary device unique to the novel. Maybe there could be a couple of lines in the definition section about how novels usually use either 1st or 3rd person narration.

Paul Eldridge

Is Paul Eldridge really a major enough figure to belong in our short list of African American novelists? I've never read him, myself, but I've also never really had anyone tell me he should be high on the list of authors I should seek out. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:31, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Once we work on the 20c section more, the list will increase dramatically, so we should try to hold back now. -- Awadewit 7 January 2005

Similarly

Someone just added "Nelson Kortsha, Oakland U (1969)". I've never heard of this person or book. Zero Google hits, other than ourselves. I am deleting. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:27, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

nationality

We really need to have a policy on how we handle nationality and language in the article. I think, for example, that it is fine that we are clarifying that certain writers are "Irish" or "Scottish" – in literary matters, these are nations – but then those from England should be "English" not merely "British". -- Jmabel | Talk 06:06, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

The problem with "English" is that readers seemingly get confused between the nationality and the language (see above in other comments). That's why I chose British. -- Awadewit 11 January 2005

Yes, but we end up with a situation where (to paraphrase Musil on "Austro-Hungarian") British is English, plus Scottish and Welsh, minus Scottish and Welsh. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:22, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Just use English-language as a designation to avoid the confusion, as in 'James Joyce is an English-language Irish novelist.' Filiocht 12:50, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

Novel v. Romance

User:Corvun hasn't yet explained the removal of a sentence, so I will revert that edit. In defining "novel" a contrast with the "romances" that preceded it is useful. — Zeimusu | Talk 08:35, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

EXCUSE ME! The server went down exactly as I was explaining the removal of the false statement. In the future, I suggest you be more mindful and courteous to your fellow Wikipedeans than to assume laziness on their part because of a problem with the 'pedia's servers.

Any way, I removed "and is not usually composed of the traditional plots of myth and legend (contrast with romance)" Because it is in direct opposition to reality. Fantasy novels make extensive use of traditional plots of myth and legend, as do science fiction novels, horror novels, and romance novels. --Corvun 11:55, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Calling an edit where there is substantive, sincere disagreement "vandalism", as you did in your edit summary, is a good way to make enemies, and not only of the person you are accusing of vandalism. So is failing to presume good faith (this user, depending on when he/she was logged in, may not even have been aware the server was down for the better part of a day). You have a lot of nerve lecturing discourteously on courtesy. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:18, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Substantive, sincere disagreement? Where? From whom? Can you name one single person who feels that novels usually aren't composed of the traditional plots of myth and legend? Who would argue that point? Perhaps someone who isn't aware of the existence of the enormous volume of novels (such as science fiction and fantasy) that do make use of traditional plots from myth and legend. Honestly, where is there any disagreement about this? Maybe "vandalism" was too harsh a word -- perhaps I should have said "intentional misinformation". --Corvun 22:53, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not going to be drawn into a farting match. My previous comments stand. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:58, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Not unless you can support them.

There's plenty of disagreement over whether "literary" novels should be separated from "genre" novels, but the key word in both is novel. I don't know of anyone who would claim that a "genre novel" isn't a novel. The claim that novels are "not usually composed of the traditional plots of myth and legend (contrast with romance)" is thus not only untrue, but completely nonsensical -- contradicting itslef by asking the reader to contrast what it says about the novel with romance, a genre in which many, many novels have been published. The statement obviously violates NPOV, but is so completely and wholly illucid that even its POV is difficult to understand. The sentence might as well have read "Blooga bugga gloop munga". So, yes, I consider its re-insertion to be an act of vandalism. --Corvun 02:23, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Collective nouns

"There are/is a small number of central characters.": Either verb may be used with a collective noun such as "number." "Are" sounds better to me in this case. logologist 22:16, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Go ahead and change it if you want. By the way, what does "UTC" mean? I see it at the bottom of everyone's talk page time stamps. --Simpsnut14 16:51, 17 Apr. 2005

• Coordinated Universal Time. The order in the acronym reflects the French-language name. It used to be known as GMT ("Greenwich Mean Time"). -- Jmabel | Talk 03:54, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

Lists of genre novels

At the risk of barging in here and offending people, the lists of genre novels seem bogus to me. There is no preface to the lists to explain why they're in the article and how they were chosen. The list of fantasy and science fiction novels seems like a random list of idiosyncratic personal favorites. Why two Philip K. Dick novels, for example, and none by Heinlein? Why Terry Pratchett and not Piers Anthony? It seems to me that the place for this sort of thing is one of Amazon.com's personal lists, or one of the wikipedia variants that encourages personal opinions in addition to NPOV encyclopedic writing. It also omits some important categories, like romance novels and westerns. I'm going to go ahead and replace it with a simple bullet list of links to the individual articles on the genres. If anyone feels that lists like these do serve some need, I'd suggest they reintroduce some lists, but make an effort to explain within the article why the lists are there and how they were selected.--Bcrowell 19:16, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Translation of the German article

If there are people around who can read German you might take a look at the article on the history of the novel I produced over there ("Roman") - in German I am afraid, but with a good deal of information on the international history of the novel including illustrations of original title pages. The thing over there is designed to lead into the 19th century where articles on the different national traditions should take over (and it is still somewhat weak on the Greek tradition and the middle ages), yet may be a thing to give a history rather than lists of novels with a few words on Defoe and the alleged rise of the novel he is said to have generated. (The word "novel" is older, and Defoe's titles were not novels when they first appeared, they were rather romances answering the wave of novels which had followed those of Aphra Behn and her generation - which again had followed the novel Cervantes and Scarron revived...). The traditions of novels of other literatures - such as China, Japan, should also, so I think, rather be added with individual articles on these literatures (as these literatures themselves have been mostly created since the 19th century to produce what is now the tradition of literatures of the world). --Olaf Simons 9 Jun 2005

• That's at de:Roman, if anyone is interested, and it looks like there is a lot of material worthy of translation. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:54, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

see: User:Saintswithin/Draft translations

Note - I have now rewritten the article, yet I confess, I am not bold enough to remove the present article. The one I wrote offers all the lists the present article provides, so no big loss if it is transferred; it can be found under User:Saintswithin/Draft translations where it began as a translation. It will need, however, and that is why I am careful about it, the revision of native speakers (and two additional chapters on the 19th and 20th centuries - they are promised). May be this note can prevent ongoing work on both articles; best --Olaf Simons 08:26, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Hm, - first my thanks to User:Saintswithin and Jmabel who did a marvellous job to make my lines sound English. What began as a mere version is better now than its German counterpart.

The article which stood here before was fragmented. It focussed on Defoe and on the rise of sentimentalism in the late 18th century - yet most of its text comprised of lists of titles, which I have now moved to the end. The 19th and 20th centuries are, I am afraid, not my field of work - yet, fortunately, this is a medium of many people working together. I enjoyed the cooperation and inspiration and hope the new artice will offer its own inspiration. Whether to include the Decameron and the Novella and the Arabian Nights (the first question discussed with the prior article)? Most certainly - these and the tradition of romances! --Olaf Simons 05:46, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Polish novels

How come the amount of Polish novels is so high on the list of remarkable novels? Many of the titles don't even have a Wikipedia page behind them. I have a hard time believing Poland should be more prominent on the list than, say, Russia/Soviet Union: currently the ratio is 12 to 2½ (Nabokov being Russian-American). (anon 3 July 2005)

• ... and the Pole Conrad, writing in English, is simply listed as Polish, which seems wrong. Poland might be over-represented in the list as it stands, but I suspect the issue is more that Russia is underrepresented. -- Jmabel | Talk July 3, 2005 23:56 (UTC)

How long is a novel?

I just deleted the following piece of information which had crept into the definition but which might be discussed here with much greater freedom: "The average length of novels is about 60 000 words." - info from "CD-ROM", so the edit claimed.

It might not be clever to give such numbers - whatever authority one could quote. First the length does not define the thing - the discussion of novels (which attributes the word to texts under discussion) is quite flexible here. Secondly: statistics are extremely uncertain in this case. What is the sample and who has defined it? (The question is particularly intriguing since the body of texts taken into account will have been defined by a secret pre-definition of length now reappearing in the statistcal result).

The article I revised had opened with a comparison of the novel and the novella and concluded "The novel is longer (at least 40,000 words)" - I found this number equally odd. Both numbers together would imply that the regular novel of 60,000 words is only one third longer than it needs to be, if it does not want to fall into the category of "novella". It will be better to think of genres as growing bodies of texts. There is a production of titles which share a certain design, certain title formulas, may be the word "novel" on the title page... and this whole body of texts is in constant change together with the discussions attributing such terms. --Olaf Simons 15:37, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Conversely, it probably would probably be worth citing some representative list (like the Modern Library's "100 best") and indicate the range of lengths. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:15, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

I think a section on definitions might be in order. For example, one man's novel is another man's novella ... at what point does a novel become a short novel ... etc. 23skidoo 13:57, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Asian novel

I just cut the following:

Below is a summation of the development of the Anglo-European novel. It should be noted however that Asia developed the novel independently, and the two traditions didn't coalesce until the late nineteenth century.

I'd really like to see a well sourced section on the history of novels in Asia. Does this refer to the Tale of Genji tradition in Japan? However on it's own the paragraph doesn't help so much. Zeimusu | Talk page 00:36, 2005 August 24 (UTC)

I agree with the criticism and feel we should have a chapter - possibly where the developments came together - i.e. in the 19th century where we can still look back on China's tradition. As a book market historian I'd be especialy interested to learn how these novels survived in China. Were they copied, was there a distribution, did they survive in single copies in private libraries? Who read them? (Prose novels, especially long ones, need a complex culture of literal copying as long as the multiplication is not done through printing presses) --Olaf Simons 07:21, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

(presumably "tradite" ==> "translate") -- Jmabel | Talk 18:12, August 24, 2005 (UTC) - is there hinestly no verb for tradition? To tradite something from one generation to the next? To hand down, to bequeath, you are normaly so easy about verbs (a captain and to captain a ship...) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Olaf Simons (talk • contribs) 25 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I was thinking the wrong cognate. No such verb in English. We'd say something like "to hand down as part of the tradition" or "to pass on / perpetuate/ etc. as a tradition". -- Jmabel | Talk 04:56, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Trim links

I'm relatively new to Wiki, so pardon me if I've not followed proper form on this page, but I think the links should be severely trimmed, to no more than three examples per section. This is not bias, simply for wieldiness. Many of these novels are unknown outside their own countries and their impact on the world is negligible. It seems that people want to nominate only their faves, rather than give a good entry. I added A Tree Grows In Brooklyn for example, and I think that is far more worthy than many entries that don't even have articles. I'm sorry, but obscure 17th century Slavic novels simply have not had the impact that the works of a Hugo nor Kafka have. Nor do many of the pre-Quixote works cited, especially since, by definition, things such as Le Morte D'Arthur fall under Romances, as described within. The Tale Of Genji, yes- the rest are simply not as well known. As for the Greek examples- many are not novels in any form, simply fictive discourses, and some were written in verse originally. I really think this entry is as flabby as some out of shape boxer and needs some real dieting. The first thing to be trimmed are the ungodly long links. The 19th and 20th Centuries may get 7 or 8 links, but before that, stick to 3- such as Shandy, Jones and Crusoe in the 18th C. Does anyone really believe the other works are on par in terms of influence? Perhaps they surpass the 3 in quality, but quality's not the issue, relevance is. Am I spitting in the wind on this? --Iago Dali | Talk

And here we are, you added I title I have never heard of. All things are relative. Yet something else: The good dictionary should lead you to titles you have not heard of. I find it terribly important to get the info about the first Polish novel - it is a latecomer on the world's market of novels telling you much about the whole concept of fiction (id did not reach the slavonic languages for quite some time). The list is, as far as I see quite good and it deserves to grow a bit longer especially with the dark centuries and the nations outside the English speaking world. It should (as I was just thinking of English titles) also comprise Aphra Behn's Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister (1684/85/87), the first modern epistolary novel. Read the entry Epistolary novel and you will learn that Richardson's Pamela (1740) was the first - which is definitely wrong and misleading (the whole genre has a soft history with no real first title but a number of fictitious international collections preparing the ground for Aphra Behn's exciting story of a woman with the most independent frame of mind...). The article which tells you what you alredy know will most certainly offer an immediate satisfaction (your knowledge is good). Yet should not one rather go for an article which will widen ones horizon - and which will then offer links for in-depth-information. I was quite happy about the well chosen list, it made me think of developments an article on this topic should cover... --Olaf Simons 18:38, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

But, Olaf. You've made the point. You may feel it's terribly important to link to the first novel of this or that group, but I counter, then link to a subpage, or page on Polish novels. Would not a leaner initial entry, with foliating sub-entries be better? I'm sure I could treble this list w/o breaking a sweat, and with far more historically and artistically significant novels than many listed, many I'm sure few would know. That does not deal with the issue raised, which is, as an entry this is merely a portal to further discussions. The entry should be concise, but compelling, but not all-encompassing. Red Darwin 20:44, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Furthermore, as a practical issue, it would seem that links to articles with types of novels, or novels grouped by nationalities would be better, as well as easier to navigate. Red Darwin 20:49, 1 September 2005 (UTC)