Annotation #11

Forster, E. M. Aspects of the Novel. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1927.

    Reading Aspects was a little like reading Plato. Though this book is important, it was undoubtedly moreso when it was first published; subsequent works from later authors have expounded on what Forster covers here. Like Plato, Forster's writing is oral in origin, coming from a series of lectures, and is buried in the traditions of its time, in Forster's case, a "veddy" English propensity for wordiness. Still, the book has its merits.

     Forster, a novelist himself, endears himself to me early on by explaining the fallaciousness of typical attitudes towards understanding fiction. He defines his own ideal of a scholar--which is actually not altogether clear, until defined by its opposite: "The pseudo-scholar often does well in examination (real scholars are not much good), and even when he fails he appreciates their innate majesty. They are gateways to employment, they have power to ban and bless. A paper on King Lear may lead somewhere, unlike the rather far-fetched play of the same name" (24). This is an indictment of universities' typical preference for the minutiae of classification over actual hands-on learning by actually writing and looking for what works, and it's a good example of why I found the thought of enrolling in an ordinary degree program unthinkable. The Onion, a satirical newspaper that I cannot live without, once ran an article that read something like this: "18-Year-Old Makes Significant Contribution to Understanding of Silas Marner," and it was about a ditsy freshman's paper explaining the symbolism of the little girl's hair being the same color as Marner's hoard of gold. I think that one headline crystallized for me the same feeling that Forster explains here, that fiction is not trivial, but the wasting of one's time merely in classifying specimens is a dead end.

     Classification has its uses--and I should know, working in a library as I do--but it should not be the emphasis of a study of fiction: "The reader must sit down alone and struggle with the writer, and this the pseudo-scholar will not do. He would rather relate a book to the history of its time, to events it describes, above all to some tendency" (28). It only does me so much good to know that Bradbury wrote Death is a Lonely Business in 1985. What really helps me to learn is to read it closely, to come up with questions and to try to answer them for myself, to get my hands dirty. Placing the book in a transparent plastic bag and sorting it into a collection would do little more than help me to find it next time I want to read it. Having got my start as a typical boyish fan, however, there is quite a load of baggage to overcome in terms of critical thinking. At some point, fan worship gets in the way of progress, even becoming a safe way of ignoring work to be done. Forster touches on this: "This constant reference to genius is another characteristic of the pseudo-scholar. He loves mentioning genius, because the sound of the word exempts him from trying to discover its meaning" (27). How many times have I found myself about to utter that word, genius, and had to stop and think about what I was about to say. Criticism, to my mind and apparently Forster's, should be more akin to learning how to build a Dodge Viper than simply knowing how to drive it, wash it, and garage it. And knowing how to build such a thing should only enhance the enjoyment of a simple Sunday drive.

     Forster doesn't offer up too many techniques for criticism. For simplicity's sake, he offers this: "Qua story, it can only have one merit: that of making the audience want to know what happens next. And conversely it can only have one fault: that of making the audience not want to know what happens next" (47). And indeed this is mostly what I look for in a work of others or my own, whether or not anything upsets the dream. Once something has wrecked the Sunday drive, it's relatively easy to figure out what and why. Bad carburetor? Need radiator fluid? What's harder to understand are the inner workings of fiction that is running on all cylinders, not hiccuping or doing anything to break the dream. Often I worry if I emphasize writers' mistakes too much, and neglect their successes, like the dangers students of Abnormal Psychology face, dwelling mostly on what does not work, to the detriment of studying what prevents malfunction in the first place.

     Forster dwells a great deal on what separates fiction from reality, and seems to be from the school of thought that there is a distinction between realism and fantasy in fiction. Though he understands arguments against such classification, "Why place an angel on a different basis from a stockbroker?" (160), he seems resigned to classifying fiction this way, even as he enjoys all of it. Whatever fiction's subject matter, however, Forster makes it clear that the fictional dream must not be broken: "...and beckon the reader away from the people to an examination of the novelist's mind. Not much is ever found in it at such a moment, for it is never in the creative state: the mere process of saying, 'Come along, let's have a chat,' has cooled it down" (125). This matches the ideas of Robert Alter in one of my earlier readings, the notion of their being two types of fiction, ordinary and self-conscious fiction. Again, Forster touches on it, and later writers have expounded.

     Forster seems to be at his best when searching for what it is that fascinates us about fiction, why it is a universal craving to experience a good story, even to tell one, touching on something I've been seeking out in my readings, that basic human desire to understand the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of those around us:

In daily life we never understand each other, neither complete clairvoyance nor complete confessional exists. We know each other approximately, by external signs, and these serve well enough as a basis for society and even for intimacy. But people in a novel can be understood completely by the reader, if the novelist wishes; their inner as well as their outer life can be exposed. And this is why they often seem more definite than characters in history, or even our own friends; we have been told all about them that can be told; even if they are imperfect or unreal they do not contain any secrets, whereas our friends do and must, mutual secrecy being one of the conditions of life upon this globe (74-75).

Too much of life seems to escape understanding, but in a story, a novel, everything is made clear by the end. Generally. Forster is just making a point, but he does oversimplify a little too much for my taste. I don't feel that real life is that far beyond our grasp. Writing a novel for me is a way of working toward more intimacy and understanding with my world, my friends. It's my way not just of escaping the daily grind of work, eat, sleep, but of mapping the undercurrents of life, so that when I go back into that ocean, I know where to swim. Reading or writing a novel is just another way of staving off loneliness.

There is another instance in the book in which I'm afraid I will have to disagree with Forster. Here he makes a good point, but carries it too far, explaining to us that in the novel, love is "unduly prominent":

Firstly, when the novelist ceases to design his characters and begins to create them--"love" in any or all of its aspects becomes important in his mind, and without intending to do so he makes his characters unduly sensitive to it--unduly in the sense that they would not trouble so much in life. The constant sensitiveness of characters for each other--even in writers called robust like Fielding--is remarkable, and has no parallel in life, except among people who have plenty of leisure. Passion, intensity at moments--yes, but not this constant awareness, this endless readjusting, this ceaseless hunger. I believe that these are the reflections of the novelist's own state of mind while he composes, and that the predominance of love in novels is partly because of this (85-85).

Writers may not reach that state of mind throughout a typical day, but if you were to believe Forster, people's inner lives would practically be extinct--oh yes, except of course for people of leisure. Personally, I would say people's inner lives are more interesting than Forster is willing to credit, but that a novel focuses such interest, whereas in a given day, our sensitivity and lucidity continually wax and wane. A story or novel is a condensed version of such moments.

Happily, Forster does get back on track, encouraging variety in point of view as a means of stimulating story and reader:

Indeed this power to expand and contract perception (of which the shifting view point is a symptom), this right to intermittent knowledge:--I find it one of the great advantages of the novel-form, and it has a parallel in our perception of life. We are stupider at some times than others; we can enter into people's minds occasionally but not always, because our own minds get tired; and this intermittence lends in the long run variety and colour to the experiences we receive (123).

Quite a few of my readings have to do with characters' striving for clarity. It could be said that virtually any novel has such subject matter, but books like Flowers for Algernon and Mockingbird really tackle not only the desire for more clarity, but the desire to escape that same clarity of understanding, to shed responsibilities and to forget. The chief problem anyone faces in learning and particularly in writing, is how much one can take before wanting to return to the dimness left behind. Too often learning can be painful, or at least difficult to retain, and it leads to question upon question of everything we thought we once knew. At some point the need for security overwhelms curiosity, and we have to be careful not to react harshly, rejecting everything freshly learned. Learning, writing, living, these are challenges, and Forster does take a moment to comfort us: "And that is why novels, even when they are about wicked people, can solace us; they suggest a more comprehensible and thus a more manageable human race, they give us the illusion of perspicacity and of power" (99).

Finally, in this book I found affirmation for the direction my education has taken. I would not have undertaken this study if I thought the subject frivolous, a waste of time. Fiction, and storytelling in general, seems to me much more important than a way to pass the time. On my list of things important to both society and myself personally, fiction ranks right up there with the study of biological psychology, archaeology, and astronomy. The study of fiction can lead to as many answers about ourselves and our place in the universe as any science; we simply need to break the mold of typical academia, as it has usually applied to literature. Forster has no less ambition, as he rails against the brevity of the lecture course he's been asked to teach: "...the phrase 'the development of the novel' might cease to be a pseudo-scholarly tag or a technical triviality, and become important, because it implied the development of humanity" (247).

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