Notes about Reading a Novel
The novel is the most expansive of all modern narrative art forms and, therefore, requires a more trained and focused approach to reading. In no way exhaustive, this brief note is meant to provide you some basic knowledge about reading a novel.
The Architecture:
While reading, you should be aware of the narrative architecture of the novelistic form itself. Below are some important things to keep in mind:
- Plot: The plot is the present tense of the novel--What happens from the beginning to the end.
- Theme: The theme is not the title of the novel but rather the main issue(s) that the novel deals with. Some possible themes: Love, coming of age, journey, quest, mystery, death, life, justice, equality and others.
- Setting: The setting means both the temporal and spatial setting of the novel. The historical time the plot is set in and the physical place--real or imagined--where the novel's action takes place. Within the novel, each section can have its own particular spatio-temporal setting.
- Characters: A novel is usually about the life, action, thoughts, and feeling of one major character. Knowing the nature of your characters is important in understanding the narrative:
- Round Characters: These are dynamic characters that change or have the possibility of changing during the course of the novel.
- Flat/Stock Characters: These characters do not change and often represent a certain fixed ethic, politics, or subjectivity.
- Point-of-View: It is important to know whose POV the novel tends to privilege. Most novels narrate the story from the POV of a narrator. There are different kinds of narrators:
- Omniscient Narrator: An omniscient narrator can give is a glimpse into the thoughts of all major characters in the novel. You thus find yourself privy to the internal struggles of all of your characters and have to then choose whose side you are on.
- Semi-Omniscient Narrator: Provides you the knowledge of only one or two major characters, while rest of the story is narrated from the POV of those characters.
- First Person Narrator: Is usually the main character but also, sometimes, a minor character narrating the events of the novel. By its subjective nature, a first person narration is highly suspect and you should never take what the narrator states on face value.
- Third Person NarratorT: Is usually considered less subjective and more reliable, but you should still question the politics and persuasions of this narrator. Do not always read the authorial voice in the third person narration.
- Tone: Is the novel a satire, ironic, or matter-of-fact? Knowing the tone of language will help you in deciding whether or not to trust the narrator. Without attention to tone, you could conduct a flat reading of a novel, thus completely missing the point.
The Postcolonial Novel
The postcolonial novel is even more complex to read as it expects you to not only know the different writing modes of postcolonial cultures but it also encourages you to understand the politics behind the text. In order to really perform a rewarding reading of the postcolonial novels keep some of the following points in mind:
- Never read the novel as a total and unmotivated representation of a postcolonial culture.
- Do not expect the novel to match the metropolitan levels of narrative convention and style: These novels sometime intentionally break the western convention to articulate a specifically postcolonial poetics and politics.
- Be prepared to go beyond the text to learn about the cultures whose partial representation you see in a text.
- Then question your own place in the world: How will the characters in the novel view you. If a novel critiques the exploitation of the global south at the hands of the developed north, are you, somehow, implicated in the process?
Finally, keep in mind that the novel is also the most political form of imaginary literature and the postcolonial version of it is often overtly political. Train yourself to read the politics that a novel represents but also the politics that it encourages in the reader, for as a leading postcolonial feminist suggests, there is "no apolitical scholarship."
Here is a link to a more detailed Guide for Critical Reading.
Orientalism
As you read Said's magesterial work ask these questions of the text/the author:
- How does he define the term Orientalism?
- What is the significance of his definition of this term?
- How does he define the all important connection between representations (fictional and non-fictional) of the orient and the perceptions of the oreint by the metropolitan cultures?
- What is the significance of understading this connection between representation and our perception of the other in our own lives?
- Also, note the terms, concepts, and texts he uses and ivokes to make his argument. You can bring these, and other questions, to class to enable a more informed class discussion.
- Here is a link to a few more detailed questions about the text.
Loomba covers a lot of major debates of the field of postcolonial studies. In reading the text, take note of the following:
- How does she define (in varied forms) the term and the field postcolonialism?
- What major debates does she cover? Who are the major theorists whose works she uses to explain postcolonialism?
- Is there any specialized vocabulary that you would like to be explained in class?
- What is the relavance of her discussion of postcolonialism to our lived expereinces?
Ngugi--Devil on the Cross
Ngugi's novel is a searing critique of global caiptalism and the native national elite. His four main characters represent idealized versions of four different kinds of national, postcolonial subjectivities. In reading the novel keep the following in mind:
- What are Ngugi's views on class, gender, and national identity?
- How does he view the role of international capital within the day-to-day life of his national setting?
- What does the dream about the devil on the cross signify?
- Is Waaringa an agent, or does she become one, and if so what facilitates her transformation from an object to a fully realized human subject?
- What role do the native proverbs intersperesed within the text play?
- If this novel reads differently than the other novels you have read, what could be the cause?
Mahfouz--Children of the Alley
Originally published in Arabic, Children of the Alley, is a critical rewriting of the normative narratives of three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. As you read, keep these questions in mind:
- Who/What is Gabalawi?
- What are the historical analogs for various characters?
- Who are the children of the alley?
- What is Mahfouz's final message about religion and peoples' relationship with God?
- What parralels can you point out between Mahfouz's allegorical account to the real life issues of faith and power in your own life?
- What does the novel teach us specifically about Egyptian culture, about human existence, and universality of human experience?
- Why do you think the novel was so unpopular amongst the Egyptian religious elite at the time of its publication? Would this novel be offensive to any strongly religious people in the US, and if so, why?
Hyder: River of Fire
- Note the names of all major recurring characters.
- Research what does the title signify.
- Divide the novel into various stages of India's history using a historical timeline.
- Try to find details about the religions and religious identities that the author portrays.
- Do not read this novel like an average Anglo-American novel. This work draws on its own specific liteary tradtions and cannot just be read with a purely Euro-American method of reading.
- Note down the Hindi/Urdu words that the author uses but does not gloss.
- Try to use the theoretical concpets learned in class in reading the text.
Encyclopedia Mythica--A good resource to look up refrences to Hindu mythology.
