Aspects of the Novel by E M Forster E. M. Forster

by E.M. Forster

E.M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel is an innovative and effusive treatise on a literary form that, at the time of publication, had only recently begun to enjoy serious academic consideration. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction by Oliver Stallybrass, and features a new preface by Frank Kermode.First given as a series of lectures at Cambridge University, Aspects of the Novel is Forster's analysis of this great literary form. Here he rejects the 'pseudoscholarship' of historical criticism - 'that great demon of chronology' - that considers writers in terms of the period in which they wrote and instead asks us to imagine the great novelists working together in a single room. He discusses aspects of people, plot, fantasy and rhythm, making illuminating comparisons between novelists such as Proust and James, Dickens and Thackeray, Eliot and Dostoyevsky - the features shared by their books and the ways in which they differ. Written in a wonderfully engaging and conversational manner, this penetrating work of criticism is full of Forster's habitual irreverence, wit and wisdom.In his new introduction, Frank Kermode discusses the ways in which Forster's perspective as a novelist inspired his lectures. This edition also includes the original introduction by Oliver Stallybrass, a chronology, further reading and appendices.E. M. Forster (1879-1970) was a noted English author and critic and a member of the Bloomsbury group. His first novel, Where Angels Fear To Tread appeared in 1905. The Longest Journey appeared in 1907, followed by A Room With A View (1908), based partly on the material from extended holidays in Italy with his mother. Howards End (1910) was a story that centered on an English country house and dealt with the clash between two families, one interested in art and literature, the other only in business. Maurice was revised several times during his life, and finally published posthumously in 1971.If you enjoyed Aspects of the Novel, you might like Forster's A Room with a View, also available in Penguin Classics.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Essays, Literature, Classics, Books About Books

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1927

About the author

Edward Morgan Forster, generally published as E.M. Forster, was an English novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society. His humanistic impulse toward understanding and sympathy may be aptly summed up in the epigraph to his 1910 novel Howards End: "Only connect".

He had five novels published in his lifetime, achieving his greatest success with A Passage to India (1924) which takes as its subject the relationship between East and West, seen through the lens of India in the later days of the British Raj.

Forster's views as a secular humanist are at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections in spite of the restrictions of contemporary society. He is noted for his use of symbolism as a technique in his novels, and he has been criticised for his attachment to mysticism. His other works include Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908) and Maurice (1971), his posthumously published novel which tells of the coming of age of an explicitly gay male character.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

They said to me "Do you do Twitter?"

I said no, I have Goodreads.

They said "What about Facebook?"

I said no, I have Goodreads - this is funny, someone said it should be called Bookface.

They didn't get that.

They said "Do you have a blog?"

I said well, no, I do Goodreads.

They looked at each other, and then they said "We heard you don't even have a mobile phone."

I said yeah, you heard right.

They said "Don't tell us, you have Goodreads."

I said "Now you're making fun of me."

They said "Huh, we don't need to."

They said "This Goodreads, it's for like book reviews? Is that right?"

I said "Well... yes, but... it's kind of... more than that"

I wasn't convincing them.

They said "More than that? You mean you talk about music and movies and like real life?"

I said "Well, it is actually books we're talking about, but, er, life does come into it"

There was a silence.

Then they said they had to go.

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Towards a Poetics of The Novel

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.

[Carolyn Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"No English Novelist is as great as Tolstoy"

...as if I couldn't love E.M. Forster even more!!!
That fact that one of my favorite authors (Forster) has also read and loved the same books as I have just makes my heart sing!

Going into this book, I thought it was going to be a type of "guide to writing fiction." Well, I can happily say that I was very wrong.
I did know I would love this book because it's a written transcript of his Cambridge lectures. What I didn't expect was for it to feel like a love letter to other classic books and authors!
Something that made me smile, was how humble E. M. Forster was! He honestly didn't consider himself a "great" writer, which makes me adore him even more. I wish I could travel back in time and tell him just how great he was and still is! His books have impacted so many people and have stood the test of time. In these lectures he spoke about Dickens, Austen, the Brontë sisters, and so many more classic authors. What he didn't realize then, is that he is now among them! If only I could have been one of the many lucky people sitting in on these lectures. My dream of being an Oxford student came alive while reading.
Instead of instructing "how to write fiction" or "the art of fiction," he chose to consider what made a novel "a novel." These lectures weren't a "how to" but a "what is." By picking apart these "aspects," he shows us the beauty of narrative storytelling. To accompany these aspects, he selected certain books and read excerpts to prove his point. By doing this, he was able to illustrate each aspect and give them backing.
I not only found this incredibly inspiring as an aspiring writer, but as an avid read! This book can also be looked at as a curated reading list from Forster himself. I have added so books to my TBR because of his wonderful words about them!
What's better than getting book recommendations from one of your favorite authors?
...
Well know that I think about it, it would be even better to talk with them face to face!

*contemplates time travel*

[Georgia Scott]

My favorite take away from this is that people in books don't have to eat. They can exist, Forster says, without food. Following this logic, unlike actors on a film set, characters shouldn't need catering. So, when they sit down at a table, I take note. Something important is about to happen. Try to picture The Glass Menagerie without those dinner scenes. Meals are the last bastion of the mother's control. Tables, round as worlds, are under her rule. She presides over them into a collision course.

Forster's point feeds more for me. What about sleep? Characters don't need it like you and I do. Yet, where would A Christmas Carol be if Scrooge hadn't gone to bed? Where, for that matter, would most ghost stories be? Forster nourishes my reading with this little book.

Though these were lectures at Cambridge, they come across in clear language not to mystify. Even if you don't know some of the novels he mentions, it won't matter. There is still so much to get from these pages for readers or writers or both. The author does, in many ways, just state the obvious. I admire that in someone who dares. Common sense is here. And a century later, the points he makes still have weight.

[W.D. Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it to bits... Not necessarily for what he says or thinks or concludes (when he does so, which isn't often, since he's always undercutting and sabotaging any hint of a clear "theoretical" position, in favour of a certain not always certain eclecticism), but for how he thinks and especially how he says it, which is kind of a combination of fussy Edwardian uncle and the mordant, dry wit of an early Aldous Huxley protagonist and the vast resourcefulness and latitudinarian magnanimity of the best Oxbridge tutor imaginable.

Immediately starting a much slower re-read and ordering those other books of his that I haven't read (most, that is... I've only read A Room With a View and A Passage to India, both years ago).

Update: This deserved a second reading because our critic has never been programmatic; he is rather eclectic but also in a most important, specific way: rather than lecturing us as a critic looking down at the novel form. ex cathedra-lly, or from an outsider's point of view, he has let his reading of novels guide him, inductively as it were, to making...well, not conclusions exactly, nor even clearly elucidated "principles" of composition, but rather he is content merely to note and ruminate upon certain...tendencies in novels he admires, novels which have about them the aura of having issued from the preoccupations of a unique creative mind and which are illustrative of one or more aspect of the totality of the form.

Those aspects are more or less adequately described by his chapter titles:


And here he is, for example, on what makes Tristram Shandy such a paragon of that aspect he chooses to call (not helpfully, perhaps as later literary history would prove) "fantasy":


And here is him on Moby Dick, his prime exponent of fantasy's obverse, the "prophetic":

The point is not whether we agree or disagree with him (for me the record was A:D = 80:20), but to watch a true master of the form wrestle with his own perplexities at the manifold nature of his art, and attempt to speak allusively, acutely, and intimately about it by turns, from the inside-out. Wonderful. There should be more books like this

[Spencer Orey · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating: 5* of five

One of the best books I've read about writing novels. A truly inspirational guide to a complex and daunting effort. It is scary enough to make the decision to write a novel. To face the prospect without a reliable guide? UNTHINKABLE!!

[Miss Ravi · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Helle · Rating 3 out of 5]

As much as I absolutely love some of Forster’s novels, there was something about this book which failed to reach me entirely. In about half of it, he was lucid and original, using text examples that I knew, and lifting their meanings to new heights; introducing his famous ‘flat’ and ‘round’ characters. But in the other half (or so), I felt that he was unnecessarily allegorical and metaphysical, and he lost me at times.

The book is divided into chapters about The Story, People, The Plot, Fantasy, Prophecy, Pattern and Rhythm, which provide Forster’s analysis of, of course, the foremost aspects of novels. As literary criticism or an elucidation of the qualities a reader must bring to the appreciation of books, it gives an overall feeling of something which is almost spiritual, certainly aesthetic, almost slightly out of one’s grasp. As an illustration of the elements of the craft of novel writing, there isn’t much in concrete terms, but this is Forster’s style. His is a hazy, dreamy, yet astute perception of the art of the novel, and he doesn’t hesitate – along the way – to pass judgment on some of the grandest names of his trade, including Scott, Dickens and James, which was rather entertaining, certainly illuminating.

He employs a majestic ‘we’, which rather irritated me sometimes, signaling some kind of collusion when saying ‘we all consider this novel so and so.’ The overall tone is quaint, yet casual, witty but opinionated, and I would have loved being in attendance when he gave these lectures, and being the annoying person in the audience who asked all the stupid questions (‘So are you really saying that James’s characters are dead?’ would perhaps be what I’d start out with).

[Heba]

يعد الروائي الانجليزي "فورستر" من ادباء مدرسة التحرر الفكري في بدايات القرن العشرين ، ولم يكن روائياً فحسب بل ناقداً وفيلسوفاً يبحث في معنى الحياة ..
تقدم هنا بسلسلة من المحاضرات عن فن الرواية ، وكيف يمكن معالجتها من أوجه مختلفة ، يستطيع من خلالها الروائي أن ينظر في عمله ( الحكاية ، الحبكة ، الاغراق في الخيال ، التنبؤ ، الاطار والنظم)..
جاءت المفاهيم بدائية وبسيطة مقارنة بها في الوقت الحالي ، ولقد طرح نقداً لعدد من الروايات ولكنه جاء مربكاً ومعقداً ولقد ارجعت ذلك لسوء الترجمة ..
يبدو أن السيد "فورستر" لم تسعفه الكلمات ليقول ما يود التعبير عنه لاسيما في الجزء الأخير من المحاضرات..
طرح سؤالاً هاماً ألا وهو " لنتخيل الروائيين في المائة سنة القادمة يكتبون في حجرة ما ، لابد وان الاختلافات في موضوعاتهم سيكون كبيراً ، اما هم فلن يتغيروا"
هل ستتغير طريقة الابتكار؟
هل يمكن ان تتغير الطبيعة البشرية ؟
يرى ان الطبيعة البشرية ان كانت تتغير فذلك يرجع الى ان الافراد ينظرون الى انفسهم بطريقة جديدة..
ارى يا سيدي ان هنالك ابتكار فيما يخص البنية الروائية وتقنياتها ، والقواعد التي يتبعها الروائي في الكتابة ولكن بنهاية المطاف الموضوعات مهما اختلفت تدور في فلك واحد وهو سبر اغوار النفس الانسانية والغوص في اعماق طبيعتها الذي يستعصى عليها ذاتها...

[Alexander Carmele · Rating 3 out of 5]

Differenziertes aus dem Nähkästchen Plaudern

Forsters Aspects of the novel, 1927 erschienen, steht als Vorläufer und Bezugspunkt für die darauffolgenden Narratologie-Diskussionen, bspw. von Gérard Genettes Die Erzählung , Käte Hamburger Die Logik der Dichtung oder Franz K. Stanzels Theorie des Erzählens . Anders als diese will er aber naiv über den Roman berichten, aus der Sicht des Praktikers, er selbst schrieb Romane, und Konsumentens:

Etwas von Scheherazades Gemahl steckt in jedem von uns; auch wir wollen wissen, wie es weitergeht. Das ist allgemein menschlich, und deshalb eben braucht jeder Roman eine Geschichte als Rückgrat. Manche unter uns wollen von nichts anderem wissen; wir fühlen nichts als diese urtümliche Neugier, und folglich sind darüber hinaus all unsere literarischen Urteile grotestk.

Die Simplizität von Forsters Argumentation dient der Orientierung, wenn der Wald vor lauter Bäumen, die Bäume vor lauter Wald unsichtbar zu werden drohen. Für ihn gibt es drei wesentliche Elemente des Romans: die Geschichte (der Stoff), die Menschen (die Figuren) und die Fabel (der Plot). Diese drei Elemente haben sich zu verweben, indem die Geschichte spannend eine Abfolge von Begebenheiten enthält, die von flachen und runden, überraschenden Figuren, bevölkert werden, und die durch eine Handlungslogik einen Rahmen der Orientierung und so Perspektive erhält. Die Fabel ersetzt den aristotelischen Begriff des Konflikts. Er bringt Bewegung in die Ereignisabfolge:

Die Fabel also ist der Roman aus dem Blickwinkel der Logik, des Intellekts: sie braucht das Rätselvolle, doch die Rätsel lösen sich erst später. Der Leser mag sich in noch unverwirklichten Welten bewegen, den Autor kümmert das nicht. Er ist die maßgebende Instanz … entwirft sein Buch im voraus oder steht jedenfalls darüber; sein Schalten mit Ursache und Wirkung gibt ihm etwas von einer Vorsehungsmacht.

Hier argumentiert Forster direkt gegen moderne Erzählversuche wie die von Gertrude Stein, bspw. in The Making of Americans , oder André Gide in Die Falschmünzer in ihren Texten, ohne einen Plot, ein Telos auskommen zu wollen. Der Roman verliert dann an Intensität und Dringlichkeit und tritt als „eine gewaltige amorphe Masse“ voller „sumpfigen Niederungen“ in Erscheinung.

Forster schlägt vor die Begebenheitenfolge von der Fabel zu trennen (Stoff vom Plot) und in flache und runde Charaktere zu unterscheiden. Zur Analyse dient dann der Versuch, die Logik der Erzählung auf den Begriff zu begriffen und die Figuren mit jeweils einen Satz zu charakterisieren. Auf der nächsten Ebene spielen dann Überraschungsmomente (Phantasie/Übernatürliches), Rhythmus und Modell eine Rolle, die dem Gefüge Klang und Schönheit verleihen. Die letzteren verbleiben unscharf und dienen nur als Abhub vom Gelingen der Basis der Erzählung, die auf Stoff, Figuren und Plot beruht.

Obwohl die Musik menschlicher Wesen nicht bedarf, obwohl sie verwickelten Gesetzen unterworfen ist, weist sie in ihrem letzten Ausdruck einen Typus von Schönheit auf, den die Epik auf ihre eigene Weise hervorbringen muss: Weite. An diese Idee muss sich der Romancier klammern. Nicht Vollendung. Nicht Abrunden, sondern Sich-auftun.

Trotz der belebenden Klarheit fehlt Aspects of the novel die Reflexion aufs Sprachliche, ja, das Musikalische der Sprache, die, wenn die Fabel auch nichts taugt, dennoch im Klang und Erzählrhythmus zu tragen vermag. Ebenso fehlt die Reflexion darüber, wann eine Erzählstimme glaubwürdig erscheint, wann nicht und inwiefern dies mit der Komposition, dem Zusammenspiel von Geschichte, Figuren und Fabel zusammenhängt.

Was aber, auch mit E.M. Forester, nichts taugt, wären karge Sprachen ohne Dynamik, ohne Poesie, die in die sumpfigen Niederungen einfallsloser Belletristik tauchen und Gedanken in amorphe Massen verwandeln. Für manche enervierend, erinnert Aspects of the novel daran, dass ein Roman, will er überzeugen, von etwas handeln, von etwas erzählen muss, und sei’s nur wie bei Gertrude Stein und André Gide von der Sprachlust, und diese Erinnerung scheint, zumindest die sogenannte anspruchsvolle Literatur, immer wieder gebrauchen zu können. Der narratologische Mehrwert bleibt dennoch gering.

[فايز غازي Fayez Ghazi · Rating 3 out of 5]

لا يوجد روائي إنجليزي في عظمة تولستوي استطاع ان يعطي تلك الصورة الكاملة عن حياة الإنسان في منزله وفي بطولته. كما أنه لا يوجد روائي إنجليزي استشف روح الإنسان بذلك العمق الذي استشفها به دستوفسكي. ولا يوجد روائي في اي مكان نجح في تحليل الوعي الحديث كما نجح مارسيل بروست. إننا يجب ان نصمت امام تلك الإنتصارات."

مجموعة محاضرات تم تفريغها على الورق يتحدث بها فورستر حول أوجه الرواية: الحكاية، الناس (الشخصيات)، الحبكة الروائية، الإغراق في الخيال، التنبؤ، النموذج والوزن.

يستعين فورستر بالكثير من الروايات الإنجليزية وبعض الروايات الفرنسية والروسية المشهورة ليشرح أوجه الرواية المختلفة داخلها والفروقات ما بينها وحاجتها او عدم حاجتها لبعض العناصر.

يرى فورستر ان الرواية تروي حكاية، وسؤالنا عن كيف ولماذا هو الحبكة، وفي داخلها شخصيات فنية تختلف عن شخصيات الواقع وهي إما تكون مسطحة او دائرية.

لقد عرّفنا الحكاية على أنها مجموعة من الحوادث مرتبة ترتيبًا زمنيًا. والحبكة ايضًا سلسلة من الحوادث يقع التأكيد فيها على الأسباب والنتائج. فإذا قلنا "مات الملك ثم ماتت الملكة بعد ذلك"، فهذه حكاية، أما "مات الملك وبعدئذ ماتت الملكة حزنًا، فهذه حبكة، وقد احتفظنا هنا بالترتيب الزمني ولكن الإحساس بالأسباب والنتائج يفوقه."

يشدد فورستر على ذكاء وذاكرة القارئ، فالحبكة الغامضة تحتاج منه الإنتباه والتركيز للإستمتاع بالرواية المقروءة. وفكّ شيفرتها

الحبكة الروائية لا يمكن ان يهضمها جمهور من المستمعين من أهل الكهوف يفغرون أفواههم غباء، أو لسبطان طاغية أو لأحفادهم الحديثين كجمهور السينما."

بشكل عام الكتاب جيد، هناك مشاكل كثيرة في الترجمة من حيث المعنى والأخطاء المطبعية. طبعًا النقد تطور كثيرًا من أيام فورستر وبعض المعاصرين لا يؤمنون بالحبكة ضمن الرواية او التواتر الدرامي لكنه كتاب مفيد بجميع الأحوال.

[Albert · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Armin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Herrliche Analyse des anglo-amerikanischen Kanons vom 18. Jahrhundert bis Ulysses (+Dostojewski, Tolstoj, Gide, Proust) mit zahlreichen trefflichen Bonmots. Aber zwischen den etlichen bemerkenswerten Sprüchen zum Einrahmen gibt es auch allerlei Seichtigkeiten oder Kamingeplauder.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not exactly a how-to guide or a critique, Forster very basically explains different aspects of the novel through a series of lectures he gave in the late 1920s. A lot of the books that he refers to I’ve never read and probably never will (Les Faux Monnayeurs, not so much interested in), but he usually includes enough detail of the story or character that you get his point.
The tone is pretty casual, which makes it an easy read and while the aspects he covers are very basic - the story, the plot, what makes a character flat or round - it was compelling enough to keep me reading.
I particularly liked the last couple chapters. His point about what elevates a book beyond being preachy to being prophetic is perfectly highlighted by his example from Adam Bede and The Brothers Karamazov.
I love Forster's novels and I think in the final chapter, Pattern and Rhythm, when he writes of how music is like fiction, he really seems to sum up his idea of the novel:
“Expansion. That is the idea the novelist must cling to. Not completion. Not rounding off but opening out. When the symphony is over we feel that the notes and tunes composing it have been liberated, they have found in the rhythm of the whole their individual freedom. Cannot the novel be like that? “
Yes, cannot it?

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 Stars

I had to read this series of lectures by E.M. Forster for one of my classes and I found it quite interesting, especially in some parts. I also really appreciated how clear he was in his explanations and how every aspect was touched upon and not left unresolved. If you're interested in fiction in general and its main aspects, you might want to read this.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70492

I am proofing this book for Free Literature and Project Gutenberg will publish it.

NOTE


These are some lectures (the Clark lectures)
which were delivered under the auspices of Trinity
College, Cambridge, in the spring of 1927. They
were informal, indeed talkative, in their tone, and
it seemed safer when presenting them in book
form not to mitigate the talk, in case nothing
should be left at all. Words such as "I," "you,"
"one," "we," "curiously enough," "so to speak,"
"only imagine," and "of course" will consequently
occur on every page and will rightly distress the
sensitive reader; but he is asked 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.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I INTRODUCTORY

II THE STORY

III PEOPLE

IV PEOPLE (_continued_)

V THE PLOT

VI FANTASY

VII PROPHECY

VIII PATTERN AND RHYTHM

IX CONCLUSION

INDEX

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read a book! I chipped away at this one, read some passages more than once, and I confess — there were parts I didn't quite understand.

Okay, I exaggerate: "didn't quite understand" should really say, There were parts I did not understand at all.

Forster uses many novels as examples, and I was always grateful when it was a book I had read. There are authors, such as "George Meredith", who seem to have been popular back in the day but have now fallen out of favour. Others, such as the Tolstoy, George Eliot, and Dostoyevsky, remain well-known.

When I read something I can't quite grasp, I try to reach out a little further, stretch out towards the mystery, and imagine I might actually be able to touch some of Morgan's wit and wisdom. Touching is not the same as grasping, but one does what one can.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

By the author’s own admission, “these are some lectures (the Clark Lectures) which were delivered under the auspices of Trinity College, Cambridge, in the spring of 1927.”

Using examples of archetypal works by many of the world’s paramount writers, he discusses seven facets he deems general to the novel: 1) story, 2) characters, 3) plot, 4) fantasy, 5) prophecy, 6) pattern, and 7) rhythm.

Forster cans the method of examining the novel as a historical development, in preference to an appearance of all novelists throughout history writing concurrently, side by side. He first establishes that, if nothing else, a novel is a narrative occurring over a period of time. He stresses the prominence of character, maintaining that both ‘‘flat’’ and ‘‘round’’ characters may be included in the popular novel.

He regards the inevitability of plot, which creates the consequence of suspense, as a pickle by which character is recurrently sacrificed in the service of providing an ending to the novel.

Fantasy and prophecy, which provide a logic of the ‘‘universal,’’ or spiritual, Forster regards as dominant aspects of the great novel. Lastly, he dismisses the value of ‘‘pattern,’’ by which a narrative may be structured, as another aspect that repeatedly sacrifices the liveliness of character.

Drawing on the metaphor of music, Forster concludes that rhythm, which he defines as ‘‘repetition plus variation,’’ allows for an aesthetically pleasing structure to emerge from the novel, while maintaining the integrity of character and the nonfiction writing, such as essays, literary criticism, and biography. In addition to Aspects of the Novel, two important essay collections were Abinger Harvest (1936) and Two Cheers for Democracy (1951).

In an exploratory chapter, Forster founds the rubrics for his argument of the English novel. He outlines the novel purely—according to M. Abel Chevalley in Le Roman Anglais de notre temps, as ‘‘a fiction in prose of a certain extent.’’ He goes on to delineate English literature as literature written in the English language, irrespective of the geographic setting or source of the author.

In a chapter on ‘‘The Story,’’ Forster begins with the proclamation that the novel, in its most basic definition, tells a story. He goes on to say that a story must be built around uncertainty—the question of ‘‘what happens next?’’ He thus defines the story as ‘‘a narrative of events arranged in their time sequence.’’

In two chapters entitled ‘‘People,’’ Forster discusses characterization in the novel. He describes five ‘‘main facts of human life,’’ which include ‘‘birth, food, sleep, love, and death,’’ and then compares these five activities as experienced by real people (homo sapiens) to these activities as enacted by characters in novels (homo fictus).

In a chapter on plot, Forster defines plot as a narrative of events over time, with an emphasis on causality. He claims that the understanding of plot requires two traits in the reader: intelligence and memory. In a chapter on fantasy, Forster asserts that two important aspects of the novel are fantasy and prophecy, both of which include an element of mythology.

Forster describes the aspect of prophecy in a novel as ‘‘a tone of voice’’ of the author, a ‘‘song’’ by which ‘‘his theme is the universe,’’ although his subject matter may be anything but universal. In a chapter on pattern and rhythm, Forster describes the aspect of pattern in the novel in terms of visual art. He describes the narrative pattern of Thaïs, by Anatole France, as that of an hourglass and the novel Roman Pictures, by Percy Lubbock, as that of a chain. He determines that pattern adds an aesthetic quality of beauty to a novel. He then turns to the aspect of rhythm, which he describes as ‘‘repetition plus variation,’’ as better suited to the novel than is pattern.

He describes the multi-volume novel Remembrance of Things Past, by Marcel Proust, as an example of the successful use of rhythm. Forster concludes that rhythm in the novel provides a more open-ended narrative structure without sacrificing character.

To quote Forster himself, the essays are “informal, indeed talkative, in their tone, and it seemed safer when presenting them in book form not to mitigate the talk, in case nothing should be left at all. Words such as ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘one’, ‘we’, ‘curiously enough’, ‘so to speak’, ‘only imagine’ and ‘of course’ will consequently occur on every page and will rightly distress the sensitive reader; but he is asked 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.”

After his death on June 7, 1970, in Coventry, England, his novel Maurice (1971) was published for the first time, speciously bottled-up by the author because of its first-person content vis-à-vis a young homosexual individual.

[Eleanor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed it to some extent, especially the laugh-out-loud moments where he points out how utterly ridiculous a plot is, or quotes a parody of Henry James by H G Wells. But many of the books of which he speaks are ones I have never even heard of and so I must confess that there were times when he lost me and I would rather have been elsewhere.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read "Aspects of the Novel" shortly after I entered College at a time when my reading was predominately in science fiction. I found Forster’s book very exciting and it stimulated me to the point where I began reading more widely and finally became an English major.

Well, time has passed since then and my views have moderated somewhat though I still think this is a book anyone interested in the novel should look through at last once.

The first two chapters are quite engaging and help explain why these lectures were such a public success. Immediately afterwards Forster was offered a three year Cambridge Fellowship and later on was made an honorary life Fellow and given a permanent home in Cambridge.

The book shows its age more in Chapters 3 and 4 which deal with people. Forster’s use of “flat” and “round” characters is clever and may be useful but they probably oversimplify the complex art of characterization in a novel.

I would agree with those who feel that he sells Dickens short. I would also certainly agree that it is true that in the creation of subtle characters with psychological depth, Jane Austen is the greater artist. However, that certainly does not mean that she is a greater novelist than Dickens as Forster seems to imply. The world of Austen may be meticulously created and the characters in it superbly drawn but that world is very much a tiny slice of eighteenth century society. Only in "Mansfield Park" does Austen give us a glimpse of the lower classes.

On the other hand, Dickens presents an incredibly vivid panorama of Victorian England. The characters may, in Forster’s terms, be “flat” but they stand out with striking power and frequently convey an energy that helps to vivify the human condition in a way that we never see in an Austen novel. I am not saying that Dickens is a greater novelist than his predecessor, but he is certainly as great.

I think that Forster here is echoing a complaint about Dickens’s characterization technique that was common at the time and which we see repeated in F.R. Leavis as well. In fact, Dickens is capable of using a highly sophisticated narrative approach—as in "Bleak House."

A great deal of work has been done on this topic since the time of Forster and you can download a free twenty-page Chicago Short by Wayne Booth entitled “What Every Novelist Needs To Know About Narrators”.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Every-Novel....

Chapter Five “The Plot” is more successful. Even Leavis, who didn’t at all like the lectures, later praised the “demolition” (Leavis’s term} of Forster’s analysis of George Meredith.
More generally, Forster here begins to weave in the aesthetic dimension of the novel through the mechanism of the plot. He states:

“We come up against beauty here—for the first time in our enquiry: beauty at which a novelist should never aim, though he fails if does not achieve it.”

This aesthetic quality will be later developed in the final chapter “Pattern and Rhythm”,

Chapter Six “Fantasy” is another relatively weak area. Forster considers the Fantasy novel to be equivalent to a side-show in a Circus. True, he does defend it in terms of what Tolkien would later elaborate as a “secondary world”:

“We all know that a work of art is an entity, etc. etc.; it has its own laws which are not those of daily life, anything that suits it is true, so why should any questions arise about the angel, etc., except whether it is suitable to its book? Why place an angel on a different basis from a stockbroker?”

Forster’s rather dismissive attitude to fantasy is indicated by his choice of examples. Three full pages are spent on "Flecker's Magic" by Norman Matson--now remembered primarily for "The Passionate Witch"--a completion of an unfinished novel by Thorne Smith. How many have read "Zuleika Dobson" by Max Beerbohm? Well, another few pages are devoted to it.

Forster was writing before the explosion of heroic fantasy that came with Tolkien but surely Chesterton was worth mentioning? He wrote fantasies considerably better than anything in that field that either Beerbohm or Matson produced and even developed a theory of literary fantasy.

Chapter Seven has the odd title: “Prophecy”.

“Prophecy,” for Forster, “is a tone of voice.” The novelist is not making an attempt to foretell the future rather he is involved with “the universe or something universal”. Is this really a useful term for a particular type of thematic approach in the novel? I’m not sure that it is but the chapter is well worth reading for some excellent insights on the novels Forster chooses such as Eliot”s "Adam Bede" which is contrasted with "The Brothers Karamazov."There are insightful references to D.H. Lawrence and Herman Melville—especially interesting are the comments about "Billy Budd".

The chapter ends with a discussion of Emily Bronte’s "Wuthering Heights". F.R. Leavis spends 18 lines on this novel in his "The Great Tradition". He decides it is merely a “sport” that had no connection with the"Tradition" he outlines. His wife, Q.D. Leavis (also a respected literary critic) said: “'Wuthering Heights' is not and never has been a popular novel (except in the sense that it is now and accepted classic and so on the shelves of the educated).” But Forster in a few pages writes with genuine excitement, even passion about this quite remarkable book. He anticipates both Lord David Cecil’s Children of Storm and Calm approach and Dorothy Van Ghent’s brilliant essay “Dark ‘otherness’ in Wuthering Heights” (found in her study "The English Novel, Form and Function." 1953).

Here is a snippet from Forster:

. . . emotions . . . function differently to other emotions in fiction. Instead of inhabiting the characters, they surround them like thunderclouds, and generate the explosions that fill the novel . . . "Wuthering Heights" is filled with sound—storm and rushing wind—a sound more important than words and thoughts.”

The final chapter is “Pattern and Rhythm” and I think this is the finest chapter in the book. Here, the aesthetic beauty that is generated in the plot is most completely realised in Forster’s concept of Pattern. Pattern is the plot element that “appeals to our aesthetic sense, as it causes us to see the book as a whole”. Forster analyses "The Ambassadors" by Henry James as an example of the complex beauty created by it. I would add that it is also very evident in the structures developed in Jane Austen’s novels.

Rhythm uses a repetition of an image of some sort throughout the novel to develop the theme. Forster uses the work of Proust to develop this idea. Personally I see its use through the recurring “crowd” scenes in "Huckleberry Finn" through which Twain develops the theme of the darkness in the human soul. Forster seems a bit nervous about the concept of Rhythm and spends less time on it than he does on Pattern. Probably this is because Pattern is relatively easy to analyse whereas Rhythm tends to be seen as a poetic device. Yet, I feel it is equally important.

This journey through "Aspects of the Novel" was highly enjoyable. Of course, that initial excitement of the first reading was largely gone but I think that I see the book with a greater clarity now. Inevitably time has taken its toll and some of its ideas seem dated. But I still think it is a great book with marvellous insights by a major novelist. Remarkably, perhaps a fitting tribute to him comes from F.R. Leavis in "The Common Pursuit":

“'A Passage to India', all criticisms made, is a classic: not only a most significant document of our age, but a truly memorable work of literature. And that there is point in calling it a classic of the liberal spirit will, I suppose, be granted fairly readily, for the appropriateness of the adjective is obvious. In its touch upon racial and cultural problems, its treatment of personal relations, and in prevailing ethos the book is an expression, undeniably, of the liberal traditional and it makes the achievement, the humane, decent and rational—the ‘civilized’—habit, of that tradition appear the invaluable thing it is.

“On this note I should like to make my parting salute. Mr Forster’s is a name that, in these days, we should peculiarly honour.’

[Biron Paşa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Roman Sanatı, E. M. Forster'ın 1927 yılında romanları, ağırlıklı olarak İngiliz edebiyatını, incelediği kitabı. Roman nedir, ne değildir, romanlara nasıl yaklaşmak gerekir, nasıl yaklaşmak tehlikeli olabilir sorularına cevap veriyor. Bunu yaparken de kesinlikle "kasıntı" olmayan bir dille, son derece şakacı, hatta geyikçi bir şekilde yapıyor ve ortaya okuması keyifli bir kitap çıkıyor.

Okuması keyifli, fakat pek aydınlatıcı değil. Bundan neredeyse 100 yıl önce yazılmış bir kitabın bizim romanlara bakış açımızı değiştirmesi çok zor bir iş zaten, bu yüzden Forster'a kızamayız tabii, lakin yine de kitabı okuyacak olanların bu konuda beklentisini doğru ayarlaması önemli.

Kitapta ne bulabilirsiniz?
Benim kitaptan çıkardığım en çarpıcı sonuç, Forster'ın haksız düştüğü durumlara bakarak oldu. Forster sık sık "Eh, aklı başında kimse şöyle roman yazmaz herhalde," diyor, ama bu söylediklerinin üstünden geçen yaklaşık 100 yılda "Öyle roman yazılmaz," dediği her şekilde gayet iyi romanlar yazılmış. Roman her şekle bürünüyor, her türlü kaliteli olabiliyor. Dediğim gibi, Forster bunları söylediği için aptal bir adam olmuyor.

Kitaptaki fikirlerin çoğu bana mantıksız geldi. Orhan Pamuk bu kitap için "modası geçmiş" diyordu, böyle tanımlayabiliriz. Sık sık dile getirdiği "tarih devam eder, sanat durur" minvalindeki sözüne ise hiç katılmıyorum. Yazarların zamansız bir odada yan yana oturup romanlarını yazdığı fikri romantik olsa da daha çok bunu bir yazarın avuntusu olarak okudum. Hiçbir yazar eskimek istemez, ama bence bu kaçınılmazdır. Sanat yan yana ilerleyen bir şey değil, ileri doğru gelişen bir şeydir. Çünkü her zaman hatalar tespit edilir, çareler üretilir. Bunlara farklılık değil, gelişim deriz.

Ufuk açıcı diyemesem de arada fark ettiğiniz ama isimlendiremediğiniz şeyleri dile getirdiği oluyor Forster'ın.

Bu tarz kitaplarda genelde kullanılan bir yöntem olan diğer metinlerden faydalanmanın bazen aşırıya kaçması canımı sıkmadı da değil. Kitabın ilk kısımlarında yazar kendi fikirlerini belirtip sonra örnek olarak diğer metinleri gösterirken, sonlara doğru direkt metinleri alıp onlar üzerinden anlatmış. Bahsi geçen bazı yazarları duymamıştım bile.

Ben okuduğuma pişman olmadım yine de. Bunda yazarın şakacı üslubunun payı büyük. Her türlü keyifle okunuyor. Fikirlere katılmasam bile ilginç bakış açıları da sunuyor.

[Jo Berry ☀️ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really hoped to get a lot more out of this book, but I spent most of my time thinking, ‘What are you talking about?’ It’s hard to find many lucid bits.

For example, in the segment called Pattern and Rhythm:

‘The longer [Henry] James worked, the more convinced he grew that a novel should be a whole not necessarily geometric like The Ambassadors, but it should accrete round a single topic, situation, gesture, which should occupy the characters and provide a plot, and should also fasten up the novel on the outside - catch its scattered statements in a net, make them cohere like a planet, and swing through the skies of memory. A pattern must emerge, and anything that emerged from the pattern must be pruned off as wanton distraction. Who so wanton as human beings? Put Tom Jones or Emma or even Mr Casaubon into a Henry James book, and the book will burn to ashes, whereas we could put them into one another's books and only cause local inflammation. Only a Henry James character will suit, and though they are not dead - certain selected recesses of experience he explores very well - they are gutted of the common stuff that fills characters in other books, and ourselves. And this castrating is not in the interests of the Kingdom of Heaven, there is no philosophy in the novels, no religion (except an occasional touch of superstition), no prophecy, no benefit for the superhuman at all. It is for the sake of a particular aesthetic effect which is certainly gained, but at this heavy price.’

It would take me some time to even begin to decode that and Forster doesn’t go on to explain what he means. The whole book is lost is some strange poetry, when what you really want is plain speaking to help you understand how and why novels work. I didn’t get much insight. Perhaps it would have been easier to make sense of this if you were in the room when these lectures were being given, but I doubt it.

(Note: these lectures were delivered in 1927, so the book discusses 18th and 19th century novels and writers. They’re all very well known books and authors, but if you’re not into classics, that might make it even harder to follow the discussion.)

[Bryan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like many exponents of "literary" fiction, Forster has no appreciation for the craft, difficulty, or art of story. Consider this ridiculous observation:

"Curiosity is one of the lowest of the human faculties. You will have noticed in daily life that when people are inquisitive they nearly always have bad memories and are usually stupid at bottom. The man who beings by asking you how many brothers and sisters you have, is never a sympathetic character, and if you meet him in a year’s time he will probably ask you how many brothers and sisters you have, his mouth again sagging open, his eyes still bulging from his head. It is difficult to be friends with such a man, and for two inquisitive people to be friends must be impossible. Curiosity by itself takes us very little way, nor does it take us far into the novel — only as far as the story."

Although this comes from the chapter on plot, the chapter on story basically paints those who crave story as primitive, simian louts. His fiction may be great, but his elitist snobbery is entirely unjustified and off-putting.

[Mohit Parikh · Rating 3 out of 5]

E M Forester is a remarkable man. Astute. And that's what makes Aspects of the Novel so compelling.

The book is a compilation of lectures, delivered in Trinity College, Cambridge in 1927, on what he considers universal aspects of the novel: story, characters, plot, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm.
The lectures are unique and insightful. Had I not lost my book immediately after finishing it I would have loved to quote several of his shrewd, profound and appealing conclusions here.
What still remains with me is a) his emphasis, that writing novel is an art and can not be contained within the boundaries erected by rules and tricks of the 'craft'. In fact, his criticism for the two other contemporary works: Craft of Fiction and Art of Novel ('Yes, but which novel?,' he asks) in the appendix amused me most. And b) his lucid distinction between, and the explanation of the difference in effects of, a story and a plot (If it is in a story we say “and then?” If it is in a plot we say “why?”). These are extremely valuable lectures for a writer of fiction like me who wants to keep his readers hooked.

Even though there is a lot learned as a writer and a critic/reader from this book, I have awarded it only three stars for two main reasons:
1. The lectures rely heavily on assuming (or expecting, reasonably so) an audience that has read Tristram Shandy, The Ambassadors by Henry James, Moby Dick, War and Peace,The Bleak House, Meredith's works (all of which I haven't read) and some then famous, now obscure 19th century works. I could not, thus, participate in the many extensive discussions - extensive by the length of the lectures.
2. The lectures on Prophecy and Fantasy, the central common trait in the novels as per the speaker, are outdated. Describing the spiritual elements in fiction through his definitions does not seem to be necessary anymore. Even if you take the time element out, these two lectures still remain vague, and neither readers nor literary critics benefit from them.

It is a series of lectures that literary students won't like to miss. An I-Ching for literary critics and for those of us who are searching religiously for a book of (literary) wisdom.
A piece of advice: be well acquainted with the 19th century works first to make the most of the book.

[Zeineb · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is not much to be said about this book apart from the fact that it is a pillar in the field of literary criticism.

One will surely learn many valuable things about the craft of fiction thanks to Forster's witty and straightforward style which, unfortunately, did not remain consistent near the end of the book.I had the impression that Forster's choice of certain works to illustrate his opinions was made out of personal taste and stance towards a few of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, what the author excelled at is the way of making literay lectures appealing and not boring (at some point).

At any rate, this book is unvaluable when it comes to learning more about the realm of fiction.Forster is a savvy and eloquent professor who seemed, to my own dismay, trapped in the error of repeating himself about certain topics, maybe for the purpose of emphasis or for the purpose of testing one's attention span. A good and challenging read.

[Ania · Rating 3 out of 5]

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

[Thijs Joores · Rating 3 out of 5]

ik weet niet precies waarom ik dit vrijwillig gelezen heb maar prima hoor

[Alina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Today’s post will be a little different from my usual content because I’ll try my best to review E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel, a collection of lectures he held at Trinity College in 1927. This book comprises of the author’s note, an introduction, a chapter on the story, two on characters, one on plot, fantasy, prophecy, patterns and rhythm and a conclusion.

In the Introduction, Forster defines the novel and its length, then, he compares famous English novels with masterpieces of French and Russian literature and states that “No English novelist is as great as Tolstoy” because “No English novelist has explored man’s soul as deeply as Dostoyevsky. And no novelist anywhere has analysed the modern consciousness as successfully as Marcel Proust.” (p. 7)

Through the image of all the novelists writing in the same room, at the same table, Forster wants to demonstrate that each great novel is valuable due to its literary merits and not by scholarly periodisation. By pairing writers from different time periods and comparing their works, Forster shows the similarities between them even when more than a century separates the novels from one another. For example, he pairs Samuel Richardson with Henry James, H.G. Wells with Charles Dickens or Laurence Stern with Virginia Woolf. Through these examples, Forster illustrates that chronology is not that important.

In the first chapter of the book, we learn that the basis of every novel is the story because our curiosity to know what happens next is ingrained in our being from prehistoric times; The suspense keeps the listeners attentive and sometimes story-telling may save lives if we think about Scheherazade’s stories which delayed her fate. Though story and plot seem similar, they are actually not and Forster explains why is it so in the fourth chapter.

The second and third chapter revolve around characters. Unlike real people who have private thoughts and secrets, characters’ hidden side can be revealed for a better understanding of their actions, if the author chooses to do so. However, some of the five basic elements of ordinary life (birth, food, sleep, love and death) rarely appear in novels because a work of fiction has its own set of rules and eating or sleeping may not be relevant to the story.

Later on, Forster makes an important distinction between flat and round characters. Flat characters are one-dimensional, easy to recognise and don’t surprise the reader. Well written flat characters appear in Dickens’s novels and Forster considers Pip and David Copperfield as being flat characters who attempt to become round. On the opposite side of the spectrum are the round characters who grow throughout the novel and surprise the reader. Round characters appear in Jane Austen’s novels and Forster praises her for being a “miniaturist” because all her characters are rounded and can adapt to a more complex plot. Other round characters populate all of Tolstoy’s and Dostoyevsky’s novels.

The fourth chapter focuses on the plot, which is “also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality.” (p. 86) The story only fulfils the reader’s curiosity, while the plot forces them to use their intellect and memory to put together each piece of the puzzle the writer provides. The intelligent or ideal reader doesn’t expect to understand everything at once, they have the patience to read until the end to discover the mystery, which is essential to the plot.

The following chapters are about fantasy and prophecy. For Forster, fantastic stories have supernatural elements, whether they are obvious or subtle. Here, he considers fantastic the stories that deal with the unfamiliar or the uncanny, which wouldn’t make sense in real life. Prophecy, on the other hand, is linked to the tone of a novel that sends powerful and profound messages of faith, love, humanity and so on. The best examples of prophetic writers are Dostoevsky, Melville, Emily Bronte and D. H. Lawrence.

The last two aspects of the novel are pattern and rhythm which are strongly linked to the plot. The pattern has an aesthetic function in the novel, while. rhythm is a recurring phrase or theme, which, according to Forster, is similar to a motif in a symphony.

Though the book is a bit dry and Forster talks in metaphors, it was an informative read for me because I recalled what I learned in college about the novel and its essential building blocks. I see the importance of reading Forster’s lectures if someone studies literature or the craft of writing.

[ivana · Rating 4 out of 5]

in order to judge this fairly, funnily enough, i have to cling to history. in other words, avoid imagining different theorists "at work together in a circular room" (he refers to authors here, putting them outside of time, but it fits the purpose) and remember forster predated a lot of crucial theory. in his own time, he stands on solid ground and one can appriciate how witty this man can be at various points.