A View of the Room: The Craft of the Novelist
by Marilyn Green Faulkner
Most of us read novels. Over the course of a lifetime you will read many of them, perhaps without giving much thought to the process. Did you know that reading novels wasn’t always socially acceptable? A student of literature in George Washington’s day didn’t read novels, for they were not considered serious “literature.” Such a student would read history, philosophy, essays by great thinkers, and books on the various sciences, along with the Bible and attendant commentaries. Novels were for less educated people, the favorite vice of young women in drawing rooms. All that changed with the great Victorian novelists, who raised the form to such a level that by the end of the 19th century even well educated people considered novel reading more than just a frivolous past time. There were a few great novelists who helped establish the novel as an object of literary study, and one of these was E.M. Forster, the author of June’s book, A Room with a View. In his landmark work, Aspects of the Novel, he makes this intriguing remark:
“We cannot understand each other, except in a rough and ready way; we cannot reveal ourselves, even when we want to; what we call intimacy is only a makeshift; perfect knowledge is an illusion. But in the novel we can know people perfectly, and apart from the general pleasure of reading, we can find here a compensation for their dimness in life. In this direction fiction is truer than history, because it goes beyond the evidence, and each of us knows from his own experience that there is something beyond the evidence, and even if the novelist has not got it correctly, well-he has tried.”
Forster, in an attempt to show that every great novelist is attempting basically the same thing, asks us to imagine all of the great writers of history in a room together, a circular room, and they are grouped in pairs. Forster goes on to examine their use of the novelist’s tools, such as plot, point of view, and chronology, pairing novelists who use similar techniques in very different novels. We begin to see that a great novel is more than just an extended piece of prose fiction, but a complex work of art that combines poetry of language with psychological insight and prophetic wisdom. The few authors that create a truly great novel deserve our serious attention, and add to our ability to live creative and thoughtful lives. In A Room with a View, we are able to see the novelist’s craft in process, as Forster was a young man at the time and just beginning to put his tools to use. It is a pleasure to turn from this early work to Howard’s End and then A Passage to India, and see this novelist working at the height of his craft. Forster is always concentrating on the most average of people, who, in his words, are “too confused to be wicked and too mild to be great. They are simply people.” People like most of us.
Best Books Club Selection for July: The Keys of the Kingdom, by A.J. Cronin
People of my parents’ generation read A.J. Cronin’s books. They were bestsellers during the years around World War II. They are not old enough, and perhaps not great enough to be listed among the classics of literature, but Cronin is a fine novelist with an inspiring perspective. His novels portray ordinary men who attempt to live honest and true lives in a world filled with cruelty and deceit. In the words of one critic, “His favorite theme was that man should learn to be creative rather than acquisitive, altruistic rather than selfish.”
The Keys of the Kingdom tells the story of Father Francis Chisholm, a Scottish orphan who becomes a Priest and spends most of his life as a missionary in China. His experiences there are those of the most ordinary man who has an extra-ordinary commitment to the principles of Christianity. Of course, a true Christian will not tend to be popular, or politically successful in his church, or even well respected by many people. But the follower of Christ sees in this humble Priest the image of a more perfect countenance, and we grow to love him. If you like this novel I would also recommend a wonderful work by Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop.
The Keys of the Kingdom is July’s selection for the Best Books Club, and later this month I’ll tell you more about A.J. Cronin’s fascinating life. I received only a couple of comments about A Room with a View. Here they are:
I have always loved this book. What a delightful read. My favorite part is when, after everyone has been looking at nearly everything there is to be seen in Italy, George Emerson quotes his father saying, “The best view is straight up.” Hah!
And didn’t you love Daniel Day Lewis’s depiction of Cecil in the film? He moved like a wooden puppet. So perfect for Cecil.
Thanks for reminding me of what a fun ride Forster has given us in this novel. -Terry
How interesting it is to be able to look through other peoples’ eyes at some of the great books. Forster is a particularly interesting example of this. An Englishman, writing mostly for a local British audience at the beginning of a momentous century for Britain and the British Empire, with all the seeds of self-destruction showing to the discerning eye. Forster dresses these seeds in a romanticism which is endearing to the to the reader who has no great interest about the picture of self destruction, large or small, looming on the horizon, and probably accounts for his popularity in the English speaking world.
Here we have with Forster a writer gifted enough to write simultaneously at two levels, and he joins the ranks of Lewis Carrol, A.A. Milne, and Kenneth Grahame with this rare and unusual gift.
Thank you for making this possible. -Phil
Readers continue to write in about The Chosen, our selection for May:
The Chosen was a book I was happy to read. I lived across the street from a family of Jews in my teen years. Became friends and their steady baby sitter. They even drove some distance to get me when they moved. During that time I just realized they had some holidays I didn’t know about. Years later due to the military I lived in Germany and we had a small Branch of service men. One bore his testimony one Sunday. He told us how his parents hadn’t wanted him to join the Latter Day Saint religion. He didn’t want to go against his parents, but felt strongly that L.D.S. church and its teachings were right. What I have never forgotten is when he told us that in a New York cemetery there is a grave with his name on the head stone. As far as his parents are concerned he died when he left the Jewish religion. With this background I found reading about Danny and Reuven interesting. It added greatly to what knowledge I had. -Donna
I finished reading The Chosen a couple of days ago, and I’m trying to figure out what Potok was getting at with his symbolism of the eyes. First, Reuven is hit in the eye and hurt, and Mr. Savo lost his eye, then Billy wasn’t able to get his eyesight back. And, as the stress builds up for Danny, he has trouble with his vision and blinking. I keep thinking about the eyes. Could it be a theme of having your eyes opened? The characters certainly grew in their understanding of each other and themselves.
Also, Danny’s father used silence to open up his son’s soul and to help him “see”. And, in the end, Danny could “see” why. What do you think, Marilyn? -Elizabeth
Marilyn’s response: I think Elizabeth points out an important use of symbolism in this novel. Potok is trying to reach us on a deeper level than just talking to us about the difficulties of living within a proscribed religious faith. He uses the symbolism of the blind boy to alert us both to Reuven’s and Danny’s condition, since symbols engage our creativity as well as our conscious thoughts. Prior to their meeting in the hospital, neither Danny nor Reuven has ever seen beyond his own group, and both are about to have their eyes opened, just as the little boy hopes to do. It is an interesting note that the boy’s surgery is unsuccessful. Can we ever truly see the perspective of another? Certainly we must continue to try. -MGF
In August we will be reading Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. A few readers are already getting excited about it:
I just went to the used Paperback Bookstore and bought 3 copies of Huckleberry Finn to go with our home copy. All four of us are going to read it as a family. I don’t know if we will finish in one month but I’ll let you know our family’s comments and experience doing it. -Wendy
A couple months ago, I was in Hannibal, Mo, standing in front of the Clemens’ home. I could look down the street to the river and then just down the block and to the left was that tree-covered hill where little Sam Clemens romped. What a perfect place for a kid to grow up. I pledged to re-discover Twain. Oh dear. Maybe with your encouragement I can re-pledge the pledge. -Terry
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