Conclusion: Some Basic Concepts Reviewed

Abstract

To conclude this introduction to the novel it is worth reviewing some of the general concepts which have been discussed in previous chapters, and which have been used to illuminate our consideration of individual novels. Is it possible to generalise about works of art which are so diverse, complex and unpredictable? Perhaps the only rule about novelwriting is that there are no rules. Novelists work within a tradition of writing which has a history but no laws. Writers will be influenced by their own experience, their own conception of the form of the novel, and by the ‘languages’ which they have at their command. Experience will have made them feel at home with certain areas of life, with certain ways of behaving and talking, with certain themes, recurrent situations or images which seem to haunt their imagination. As we read through the work of most novelists, we begin to detect characteristic ways of working: there are detectable ‘family resemblances’ between them which make them characteristically Dickensian, or enable us to talk about ‘the world of Iris Murdoch’. We shall look at some of the most general technical terms which are in use in talking about fiction, simply to remind the student of features worth identifying and thinking about in any novel which he or she may be required to read.