The
novel is a literary genre whose history is 1000 years old; and this
history is not without its controversy. Lady Murasaki, a well placed
court figure in a Japanese emperor's retinue, is said to have written
the first 'novel'. The Tale of Genji, is a long narrative with
some development of character, plot, and place. Whether this story is
the first novel or not is in dispute. Cervantes' classic, Don
Quixote, a work from the 16th century is another early example of
the form.
From
the Encyclopedia Britannic comes this definition: A novel is an
invented prose narrative of considerable length and a certain
complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience, usually
through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons
in a specific setting.1
The
novel is just one of several forms that literature might take:
poetry, drama, short prose, and non-fiction are other common genres.
In the Greek classic tradition there were but two types: tragedy and
comedy. Our penchant for division is inexorable. These days we
further split the categories into subcategories and, no doubt, there
are categories of the subcategories. Splitting hairs seems to be what
our feeble intellects prefer. While this discrimination can be useful
in understanding the nature of the beast we are dealing with, such
labeling can also be detrimental when it comes to a clear view of the
work. Clarity is often obscured by sentiment.
Meet
an old man with a young wife and what do you have? Cradle-robber.
Gold digger.
from
The
New Yorker
Samuel
Beckett, Paris, April, 1979. Photograph by
Richard
Avedon. © The Richard Avedon Foundation.
Someone
who picks up a novel by Samuel Beckett inevitably comes to the
reading with preconceived notions. Disappointment follows. This will
be especially so with his early 'novels.' Tedious, boring,
repetitious are three of the kinder epithets often applied to Dream
Of Fair to Middling Women (1932),
his first novel,
as well as
to
Murphy (1936). The reason
for this criticism may be quite simple: Beckett's intention was never
to write a conventional novel. He was convinced that Joyce had worked
the form for all that it was worth. He wrote:
"I
realized that Joyce had gone as far as one could in the direction of
knowing more, [being] in control of one’s material. He was always
adding to it; you only have to look at his proofs to see that. I
realized that my own way was in impoverishment, in lack of knowledge
and in taking away, in subtracting rather than in adding."2
His
prose smacked more of drama than not. Reading Beckett's 'novels' with
this in mind produces a different outcome.
Are
they then anti-novels? Literature noir? Prose-drama? None of the
above? Ultimately, these are just more labels. The key point here is
this: Avoid conceptions, labeling, discrimination. Yes, you must stop
on the red and go on the green. But ... And whether the discussion is
about Samuel Beckett or The Muppets, best to remember that inevitably
an object labeled 'cigar' is always just an object labeled 'cigar.'
Anything else is just smoke and mirrors.
2 Samuel
Beckett, as related by James Knowlson in his biography.
