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A review by loosegeese
Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster
1.0
E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel had the potential to make some very important and interesting points about how we categorise and understand the novel. In fairness, it contains very simple and helpful definitions of plot and story. Forster tells us that the two are distinguished by causality.
Unfortunately, the man is a total prick. The very personal, informal style of the guide reveals how hugely biased, defensive and uninformed Forster is. He believes only the intelligent with good memories can appreciate novels, movie-goers are no better than cavemen, and he chides the inquisitive – a reader should not ask questions of their novelist, simply read and brood.
Forster asks us in his introduction to imagine every novelist working in a single circular room at the same time, removing their works of any context, influence and chronology. In designing this room, he refuses to believe that social, medical, political or technological advances have in any way impacted the novel. He lost me fully on page 27 with the words: ‘As women bettered their position the novel, they asserted, became better too. Quite wrong.’ I refuse to believe that all the world’s novels could be written without any knowledge of one another. Nothing exists in a vacuum. I had borrowed my copy from the library, and so will finish up with a quotation from another student scrawled in the margins. ‘NO! STICK IT UP YOUR ARSE.’
Unfortunately, the man is a total prick. The very personal, informal style of the guide reveals how hugely biased, defensive and uninformed Forster is. He believes only the intelligent with good memories can appreciate novels, movie-goers are no better than cavemen, and he chides the inquisitive – a reader should not ask questions of their novelist, simply read and brood.
Forster asks us in his introduction to imagine every novelist working in a single circular room at the same time, removing their works of any context, influence and chronology. In designing this room, he refuses to believe that social, medical, political or technological advances have in any way impacted the novel. He lost me fully on page 27 with the words: ‘As women bettered their position the novel, they asserted, became better too. Quite wrong.’ I refuse to believe that all the world’s novels could be written without any knowledge of one another. Nothing exists in a vacuum. I had borrowed my copy from the library, and so will finish up with a quotation from another student scrawled in the margins. ‘NO! STICK IT UP YOUR ARSE.’