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warrenl's review against another edition
4.0
There is a lot of hi-falutin' stuff in here that shot right over the top of my rather lowly intellect, but Forster taught me a great deal as I plugged through to the end, and I will now view and reflect on every novel I read, or ever have read, in different lights and with greatly enhanced clarity. On this alone, I judge this little book a great success.
reverie_and_books's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
This is a collection of lecture notes for a course he gave at Cambridge University in 1927. It spans the topics Story, People, Plot, Fantasy, Prophecy, Patterns, and Rhythm of novels. In that way this is a meta-book on the art of writing novels, the connections between People and Plot, the differences between scholars, pseudo-scholars and critics, and much more.
“The final test of a novel will be our affection for it, as it is the test of our friends, and of anything else which we cannot define.”
Forster acknowledges personal taste and relations to a novel before putting this important but subjective matter aside. With reference to many classic authors like Melville, Dickens, E. Brontë and Austen, but also the (to him) superior novels of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, he give examples in regards to the topics he discusses.
This collection might be especially fun if you’ve read a few classic novels and want to dissect the matter they are made of.
“The final test of a novel will be our affection for it, as it is the test of our friends, and of anything else which we cannot define.”
Forster acknowledges personal taste and relations to a novel before putting this important but subjective matter aside. With reference to many classic authors like Melville, Dickens, E. Brontë and Austen, but also the (to him) superior novels of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, he give examples in regards to the topics he discusses.
This collection might be especially fun if you’ve read a few classic novels and want to dissect the matter they are made of.
andrewspink's review
informative
medium-paced
3.0
The interest in this short book is mainly that it was written about 100 years ago, and it shows how much (and how little) views about literature have changed. The basic building blocks are the same, which characters and plots and so on. But the values are clearly different. He is mostly rather negative about Dickens, calling his characters two-dimensional and downright scathing about James Joyce, and George Eliot has apparently 'no nicety of style'. However, he devotes long passages to authors which I've never heard of - and I don't think that is entirely due to my ignorance, they have just not stood the test of time.
This book is historically interesting, but doesn't give many insights into literature that apply 100 years later.
This book is historically interesting, but doesn't give many insights into literature that apply 100 years later.
timdams007's review
4.0
A classic. Even though some parts, language-wise, are a bit awkward to read nowadays, the core aspects still are as relevant today as they were a century ago. Even if you’re not interested in what constitutes a good novel, just read this one for the way the author/teacher/critic talks. Great fun!
loosegeese's review
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.’
scottsolomonwriter's review
5.0
This book on the craft of writing could have been entitled Aspects of Narration. Forster's observations regarding story, plot, character, and theme are all-inclusive and timeless.