Inner Workings of the Novel: Studying a Genre PDF
Preview Inner Workings of the Novel: Studying a Genre
Inner Workings of the Novel AlsobyAllanH.Pasco TheColor-KeystoÀlarecherchedutempsperdu,1976 NovelConfigurations:AStudyofFrenchFiction—Stendhal,Balzac,Zola, Gide,Huysmans,Proust,Robbe-Grillet,andOthers,1987 BalzacianMontage:ConfiguringLaComédiehumaine,1991 Allusion:ALiteraryGraft,1994 Co-Editor,withJohnT.Booker.ThePlayofTerrorinNineteenth-Century France,1996 SickHeroes:FrenchSocietyandLiteratureintheRomanticAge,1750–1850, 1997 NouvellesfrançaisesduXIXesiècle,2006 RevolutionaryLoveinEighteenth-andEarlyNineteenth-CenturyFrance, 2009 Inner Workings of the Novel Studying a Genre Allan H. Pasco Palgrave macmillan INNERWORKINGSOFTHENOVEL Copyright©AllanH.Pasco,2010. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-10698-7 Allrightsreserved. Firstpublishedin2010byPALGRAVEMACMILLAN®inthe UnitedStates-adivisionofSt.Martin’sPressLLC,175FifthAvenue, NewYork,NY10010. WherethisbookisdistributedintheUK,Europeandtherestof theWorld,thisisbyPalgraveMacmillan,adivisionofMacmillan PublishersLimited,registeredinEngland,companynumber785998, ofHoundmills,Basingstoke,HampshireRG216XS. PalgraveMacmillanistheglobalacademicimprintoftheabove companiesandhascompaniesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld. Palgrave®andMacmillan®areregisteredtrademarksintheUnited States,theUnitedKingdom,Europeandothercountries. ISBN 978-1-349-29041-3 ISBN 978-0-230-11743-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230117433 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Pasco,AllanH. Innerworkingsofthenovel:studyingagenre/AllanH.Pasco. p. cm. 1. Frenchfiction—19thcentury—Historyandcriticism. 2. Frenchfiction—19thcentury—Historyandcriticism. 3. Fiction—Technique. I. Title. PQ653.P372010 843(cid:2).709—dc22 2010014508 DesignbyIntegraSoftwareServices Firstedition:December2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Transferred to Digital Printing in 2011 ForDallas Contents Preface ix 1 TheLongandShortoftheNovel 1 2 MakingShortLong:ShortStoryCycles 33 3 RemakingtheNovel 63 4 TrinitarianUnity 89 5 Proust’sReader 117 6 Conclusion 155 Notes 165 Index 197 Preface Theory which does not seek ultimately to explain the form of novels, as organicwholes,ispointless. —PhilipStevick Novelists as diverse as the French Nouveaux Romanciers, Oulipo (most notably Queneau and Perec), and the “extreme” novel insist that their novelsareinessencedifferentfromthoseofthepast.Theclaimisalong- standingcommonplaceofnovelists’prefacesandessays.Nonetheless,they andothersaregenerallycontenttoinsistonwhattheydonot do:theydo notdependonplot,character,chronology,causality,andsoon.1And,curi- ously, while Vladimir Propp, Claude Levi-Strauss, A. J. Greimas, Tzvetan Todorov, Claude Bremond,2 and others have done considerable impor- tant work in describing the structure of narration, it might be valuable to attempt to reevaluate the standard view of novels in the light of both recentandformertraditions.Ifthegenrehasinfactchanged,theconcep- tionsthatilluminateorsupporttherelatedcriticalworkshouldberevised. Those definitions of the novel that appear in recent criticism show little or no evolution. Some stress intention,3 some subject matter,4 some the creation of a character confronting a universe,5 some length,6 some the action or plot,7 but whatever the emphasis, all, or almost all, novels are easilyrecognizedasnovels. I want to propose a simple definition of the novel, one that allows for radicalexperimentationwithintheconfinesofwhatwenormallyhavein mindwhenweusetheword.WhenIsayorwritetheterm,Imeanalong prosefictionthatisunified,coherent,andliterary.Thenovelmayusepopu- lartales,mythology,arecentscientificorhistoricaldiscovery,orthelatest newspaper, but it integrates its materials into a fiction that exists only as the reader creates it from the words he or she confronts. It is then nei- therhistorynoressay,thoughitmaymakeuseofeitherorothergeneric forms within the confines of its fictional creation. It may be a hundred or several thousand pages long, and it may use a choice of techniques, whether dialogue, monologue, description, punctuation (or a lack of it), x PREFACE allusion, symbolism, letters, or whatever, but it is on some level coher- ent and unified. And not only is its final form artistic, it is prose. That is, it is not verse, however close it may come to verse in the hands of a DylanThomasoraNabokov.Norisittheater,thoughtoagreaterorlesser extent novelists, like Flaubert, may use some of the devices and forms of thestage. Becausethenovelisagenre,ithasdelineatingparameters.Nonetheless, enormousvariationofemphasisandinterestispossiblewithinitsform.In thisvolume,Iwanttotestsomeoftheouteredges.Ihavebeenstruckby thenumberoftimesgreatnovelistshavedevelopedtechniquesthatmake the novel seem absolutely new and different from previous incarnations. Isuggestthatitstrueinnovationsareintherealmoftechnique,notsub- ject matter, which is superficial, however much the topic may for a very shorttimemaketheparticularexampleseemnew.Whenastartlingdevice appears, other novelists will doubtless come along and exploit it, at least untilitiswornoutandlosesitsabilitytocreateinterest.Thenstudentsof thegenrewillawaitanothersurprisingdeviceorstrategy.Ithink,forexam- ple,ofautobiographicalorepistolarynovels.Suchreorganizations,andthe accompanyingapproachesandtechniques,generallytakeplacewithinthe limits of the genre. Sometimes, the rearrangement or device is so subtle thatitspowerremainseffectiveforalongtime.Igiveexamplesthat,though continuingtobeexploredbyotherauthors,stillchallengereadersoverone hundredyearsaftertheirinvention.SuchisthecasewithAreboursandLa tentationdesaintAntoine. Anewdevicedoesnotchangethegenresignificantly,butitmakesthe workseemnew.WhileIamnotsurethatMaupassant’sencroachmenton theshortstorycycleinBelami(1885),forexample,isparticularlyinter- esting, the reverse, when short story writers invade the domain of the novel,hasimportantlessonsworthconsidering.ThoughIdonotgointo detailaboutnovelcycles,whichdifferinlittlebutlengthfromshortstory cycles,theshortstorycyclesIanalyzeheremakeuseofthebasicconceptual structuresofimageandsequence.Thoughthesestructureshavebeenused effectivelyinthenovel,theexistenceofsuchformsisnotdiscretelylimited to any particular genre. Still, just as a trip to the center of the labyrinth createsresonanceinourdeepestbeings,sotoothesuddenperceptionofa unifiedwhole.Thesubjectmaybeloveatfirstsight,oritmaybeasenseof eureka,anaestheticortheatricalexperience,buttheresulting,integrative illuminationorepiphanycanbeallconsuming.Suchapowerfuleffectmay becausedbyanyartform,whetherbyoneofBaudelaire’sexquisitesonnets orProust’smasterpieceorasuperbperformanceofIonesco’sLeschaises.It dependsonthearrangementimposedbytheartistonhisorhermaterials andonourabilitytoperceiveandconceivethewriter’screation. PREFACE xi Gide is particularly well known for his experimentation with “open” structuresthatresultinthesenseofanoverridingstorythatwillcontinue tounfoldafterthenovelhasreachedanend.BertoltBrechttriedtomake hisaudiencesunderstandthattheeventstheybeholdintheperformance areactivelyandcontinuouslyimpingingontheirveryreallivesoutsidethe theater. Other writers have exploited rhetorical devices with descriptions and narrations. I have been particularly struck by asyndeton, where the rupture dividing parts can serve many functions, as when George Sand’s Indianaof1831standsreadytoleaptoherdeathononepageand,without explanation,onthenextishappilyensconcedwithhercousin-cum-lover intheirjunglehome,thus,suggestinganearthlyparadise.InSurCatherine de Médicis (1830–42), Balzac turns to similar ruptures in his attempt to show the continuation across the ages of lethal philosophies that have killedsomanyfellowhumanbeings.Writerscasttheirnetswideinsearch of methods and devices that will bring their fictions to life. Among the mostaudacious,ProustandBalzacexploitakindofnegativestructureand manypowerfulintensifiers.Huysmansturnedtosymbolismtoriseabove the physical and suggested that the human spirit had considerably more importancethanmereflesh. This,then,constitutesthesubjectofmybook:Iwanttoproposearea- sonableandusefuldefinitionofthenovel.Ialsoshallwonderwhatmakes exemplarsnovel,sincenoveltyhasbeenimportantinadvancingvariations in the genre. In addition, I hope to show how several difficult master- piecesfunction,inthehopeofcastingnewlightonthegenreitself.After consideringbothimageandsequentialstructuresinshortstorycyclesby CamusandBarbey,andhowtheyaredistinctfromthemajorityofnovels, IshallturntoFlaubert’stheatrical,labyrinthinenovelLatentationdesaint Antoine and then to the analogical world of Huysmans’s À rebours.Only with such preparation, it seems to me, can we appreciate the genius that Proustdisplayedattheapexofthenineteenth-centurynovelÀlarecherche dutempsperdu.Ipropose,then,severaladventuresinreading. Thefollowingpagesrepresenttheabidingintereststhathaveguidedmy studies since the beginning. They would not have been possible without the help of the many friends and acquaintances that shared them, were willing to talk about them, and had the knowledge to affect my under- standing. I also remember the group that long met weekly at Jimmy’s, a popular gathering spot near the University of Chicago. Raging, though good-natured,argumentsbetweentheMarxistphilologistPaoloCherchi, theneo-AristotelianDavidLeeRubin,theGenevancriticsUmbertoRobles andArnaudTripet,andNewCritics,Structuralists,andFormalistsofsev- eralstripesthatpassedthrough,sentmehomeweeklywithnewideasand references.Idedicatetheresultingbooktomywifeandpartner,whohas
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