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E. M. Forster

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Aspects of the Novel (Penguin classics) Paperback – 1 Sept. 2005

by E.M. Forster (Author), Oliver Stallybrass (Author), Frank Kermode (Preface)

4.3 206 ratings

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E.M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel is an innovative and effusive treatise on a literary form that, at the time of publication, had only recently begun to enjoy serious academic consideration. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction by Oliver Stallybrass, and features a new preface by Frank Kermode.

First given as a series of lectures at Cambridge University, Aspects of the Novel is Forster's analysis of this great literary form. Here he rejects the 'pseudoscholarship' of historical criticism - 'that great demon of chronology' - that considers writers in terms of the period in which they wrote and instead asks us to imagine the great novelists working together in a single room. He discusses aspects of people, plot, fantasy and rhythm, making illuminating comparisons between novelists such as Proust and James, Dickens and Thackeray, Eliot and Dostoyevsky - the features shared by their books and the ways in which they differ. Written in a wonderfully engaging and conversational manner, this penetrating work of criticism is full of Forster's habitual irreverence, wit and wisdom.

In his new introduction, Frank Kermode discusses the ways in which Forster's perspective as a novelist inspired his lectures. This edition also includes the original introduction by Oliver Stallybrass, a chronology, further reading and appendices.

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) was a noted English author and critic and a member of the Bloomsbury group. His first novel, Where Angels Fear To Tread appeared in 1905. The Longest Journey appeared in 1907, followed by A Room With A View (1908), based partly on the material from extended holidays in Italy with his mother. Howards End (1910) was a story that centered on an English country house and dealt with the clash between two families, one interested in art and literature, the other only in business. Maurice was revised several times during his life, and finally published posthumously in 1971.

If you enjoyed Aspects of the Novel, you might like Forster's A Room with a View, also available in Penguin Classics.

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Print length

224 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin Classics
Publication date

1 Sept. 2005
Dimensions

12.83 x 1.35 x 19.81 cm
ISBN-10

9780141441696
ISBN-13

978-0141441696
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About the Author

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) was a noted English author and critic and a member of the Bloomsbury group. His first novel, Where Angels Fear To Tread appeared in 1905. The Longest Journey appeared in 1907 followed by A Room With A View (1908), based partly on the material from extended holidays in Italy with his mother. Howards End (1910) was a story that centered on an English country house and dealt with the clash between two families, one interested in art and literature, the other only in business. Maurice was revised several times during his life, and finally published posthumously in 1971.

Sir Frank Kermode is the first literary critic to be knighted since Empson and is widely acknowledged as the head of the profession in this country. His books include A Sense of an Endgin, his autobiography, Not Entitled, Pleasing Myself, and the best-selling Shakespeare's Language.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0141441690
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Classics; New ed edition (1 Sept. 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780141441696
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0141441696
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.83 x 1.35 x 19.81 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 252,233 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 7 in Key Poetry & Drama Critics
- 87 in Literary Studies
- 111 in Criticism on Novels & Novelists

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4.3 206 ratings

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4.3 out of 5

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Ian Polk

Highly engaging but not a manual on how to write a book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 September 2021

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It's written by E.M. Forster - author of 'A Room With A View', 'A Passage To India', 'Howards End' and so on, who was also a Fellow of King's College Cambridge (not bad if you can't get into a proper university such as Oxford) and was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature a very large number of times I seem to remember (I just looked it up - 16 times apparently, good grief) - so he knew a thing or two about writing.
Unlike many Oxbridge professors who think they're very amusing (in a wry way) it turns out E.M. Forster actually was and it shows through in this book, which is, in fact, basically a collection of lectures he gave on and around this subject of writing during his Cambridge lecture series.
He makes, as you would expect, excellent and insightful comments and observations all the way through about what might be called the 'art of writing' and its mechanics as well, in addition to covering specifics, such as story, characters, plot, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm.
It's a great book about writing and if you are considering writing something for publication you should read it but it is not a manual (do this, do that, make this list etc) - there are other books for that - but this will tell you a few things that maybe they don't. And it oozes style and humour (there are actually some good jokes in it, albeit very Oxbridgey ones, I have to admit).

3 people found this helpful

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John Mccutcheon

Early attempt to consider the 'craft's of the novel

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 October 2021

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Occasionally illuminating consideration of how novels are put together. A bit dated . Too great a concern with Art as supposed to craft obscures the author's explanations. Not enough description as to the pragmatics of novel writing.

oncern

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 September 2017

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I wanted to underline all of this, so many beautifully phrased relativistic statements. For its time it is a light hearted and progressive piece of criticism or as he insists pseudo-criticism but in fact it's ( to borrow again, one of his categories) prophecy from the horse's mouth. Who like a novelist can define and elaborate functions of the novel. Which is not to say that everything is agreed or obvious. There's plenty of matter for debate/rumination but all is plainly put and enjoyable as composition.

6 people found this helpful

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Dr. P. M. Stoneman

An old favourite.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 May 2017

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I have loved this personal, shrewd and thoughtful trip through Eng Lit's novels since I was a student (nearly 60 years ago).

7 people found this helpful

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Peter Richard Henry Moss

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 February 2017

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It arrived on time and as described

One person found this helpful

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Dr Matthew Sullivan

A great book about novels by a great novelist

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 May 2019

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Amusing, perceptive, wry, entertaining and illuminating. Highly recommended!

One person found this helpful

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Sharfa Sorwar

Great

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 March 2013

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Great, book needed for uni studies, good for those who are interested in writing as I needed this for my creative writing part of my English Degree.

One person found this helpful

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Jo B

Strange and confusing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 May 2022

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I really hoped to get a lot more out of this book, but I spent most of my time thinking, ‘What are you talking about?’ It’s hard to find many lucid bits.

For example, in the segment called Pattern and Rhythm:

‘The longer [Henry] James worked, the more convinced he grew that a novel should be a whole not necessarily geometric like The Ambassadors, but it should accrete round a single topic, situation, gesture, which should occupy the characters and provide a plot, and should also fasten up the novel on the outside - catch its scattered statements in a net, make them cohere like a planet, and swing through the skies of memory. A pattern must emerge, and anything that emerged from the pattern must be pruned off as wanton distraction. Who so wanton as human beings? Put Tom Jones or Emma or even Mr Casaubon into a Henry James book, and the book will burn to ashes, whereas we could put them into one another's books and only cause local inflammation. Only a Henry James character will suit, and though they are not dead - certain selected recesses of experience he explores very well - they are gutted of the common stuff that fills characters in other books, and ourselves. And this castrating is not in the interests of the Kingdom of Heaven, there is no philosophy in the novels, no religion (except an occasional touch of superstition), no prophecy, no benefit for the superhuman at all. It is for the sake of a particular aesthetic effect which is certainly gained, but at this heavy price.’

It would take me some time to even begin to decode that and Forster doesn’t go on to explain what he means. The whole book is lost is some strange poetry, when what you really want is plain speaking to help you understand how and why novels work. I didn’t get much insight. Perhaps it would have been easier to make sense of this if you were in the room when these lectures were being given, but I doubt it.

(Note: these lectures were delivered in 1927, so the book discusses 18th and 19th century novels and writers. They’re all very well known books and authors, but if you’re not into classics, that might make it even harder to follow the discussion.)

One person found this helpful

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lakhen sinam

go for it

Reviewed in India on 4 February 2024

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its quite good

S Lacoste

Four Stars

Reviewed in Canada on 23 October 2017

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The content is classic, but the font the book is printed in is fuzzy.

lieutaud Henri

la lisibilité des caractères imprimés

Reviewed in France on 4 March 2019

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Connaissance de E M Forster en tant qu'essayiste. Étude classique, traditionnelle et donc sensée sur le roman avant les stupides théories modernes, structuralisme, post modernisme, déconstruction, linguistique, stylistique etc

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Bruno Chiaranti

Novel writing

Reviewed in Italy on 8 August 2018

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E M Foster on novel writing , and reading. Charming, authoritative, a long conversation light and deeep

Andreea

Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster

Reviewed in the United States on 30 January 2019

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E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel is a collection of lectures he held at Trinity College in 1927. This book comprises of the author’s note, an introduction, a chapter on the story, two on characters, one on plot, fantasy, prophecy, patterns and rhythm and a conclusion.

In the Introduction, Forster defines the novel and its length, then, he compares famous English novels with masterpieces of French and Russian literature and states that “No English novelist is as great as Tolstoy” because “No English novelist has explored man’s soul as deeply as Dostoyevsky. And no novelist anywhere has analysed the modern consciousness as successfully as Marcel Proust.” (p. 7)

Through the image of all the novelists writing in the same room, at the same table, Forster wants to demonstrate that each great novel is valuable due to its literary merits and not by scholarly periodisation. By pairing writers from different time periods and comparing their works, Forster shows the similarities between them even when more than a century separates the novels from one another. For example, he pairs Samuel Richardson with Henry James, H.G. Wells with Charles Dickens or Laurence Stern with Virginia Woolf. Through these examples, Forster illustrates that chronology is not that important.

In the first chapter of the book, we learn that the basis of every novel is the story because our curiosity to know what happens next is ingrained in our being from prehistoric times; The suspense keeps the listeners attentive and sometimes story-telling may save lives if we think about Scheherazade’s stories which delayed her fate. Though story and plot seem similar, they are actually not and Forster explains why is it so in the fourth chapter.

The second and third chapter revolve around characters. Unlike real people who have private thoughts and secrets, characters’ hidden side can be revealed for a better understanding of their actions, if the author chooses to do so. However, some of the five basic elements of ordinary life (birth, food, sleep, love and death) rarely appear in novels because a work of fiction has its own set of rules and eating or sleeping may not be relevant to the story.

Later on, Forster makes an important distinction between flat and round characters. Flat characters are one-dimensional, easy to recognise and don’t surprise the reader. Well written flat characters appear in Dickens’s novels and Forster considers Pip and David Copperfield as being flat characters who attempt to become round. On the opposite side of the spectrum are the round characters who grow throughout the novel and surprise the reader. Round characters appear in Jane Austen’s novels and Forster praises her for being a “miniaturist” because all her characters are rounded and can adapt to a more complex plot. Other round characters populate all of Tolstoy’s and Dostoyevsky’s novels.

The fourth chapter focuses on the plot, which is “also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality.” (p. 86) The story only fulfils the reader’s curiosity, while the plot forces them to use their intellect and memory to put together each piece of the puzzle the writer provides. The intelligent or ideal reader doesn’t expect to understand everything at once, they have the patience to read until the end to discover the mystery, which is essential to the plot.

The following chapters are about fantasy and prophecy. For Forster, fantastic stories have supernatural elements, whether they are obvious or subtle. Here, he considers fantastic the stories that deal with the unfamiliar or the uncanny, which wouldn’t make sense in real life. Prophecy, on the other hand, is linked to the tone of a novel that sends powerful and profound messages of faith, love, humanity and so on. The best examples of prophetic writers are Dostoevsky, Melville, Emily Bronte and D. H. Lawrence.

The last two aspects of the novel are pattern and rhythm which are strongly linked to the plot. The pattern has an aesthetic function in the novel, while. rhythm is a recurring phrase or theme, which, according to Forster, is similar to a motif in a symphony.

Though the book is a bit dry and Forster talks in metaphors, it was an informative read for me because I recalled what I learned in college about the novel and its essential building blocks. I see the importance of reading Forster’s lectures if someone studies literature or the craft of writing.

9 people found this helpful

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