From the earliest forms of the novel in the eighteenth century through many stages of literary and cultural transition to the present day “global Anglophone fiction”, A Companion to the English Novel condenses a wealth of written history, movements and themes into 29 “intellectually engaging” essays. That most of the contributors are American only emphasises how far the “English” novel has, in fact, become “an international form, open to continental, transatlantic and now global influences and energies”.
Arranged by topic – rather than chronologically in a traditional timeline of key authors and styles – the Companion is divided into seven parts, covering the novel and its histories, genres, form, theory, circulation, geography and readership. Academics, including the three of the editors from the University of Virginia, discuss a broad range of aspects from realism to romance and Experimental fiction to The Novel and the Everyday. Part 1 takes the novel from Defoe and Richardson in the 1740s through to the 2000s, where the “past, present and future” meet in the “postcolonial melancholia” of Zadie Smith and Kazuo Ishiguro’s dystopian Never Let Me Go. Building on the historical development of the novel Part 2 looks at the changes in genre over the centuries. Austen and romance follows eighteenth-century realism, and experimental fiction of the twentieth century leaves behind the gothic and mass-market genres of the 1900s. There is also an interesting comparison of the “remarkably close, if not incestuous, relation” shared by novels and films, and the initial reception of both (“They are the entertainment of minds unfurnished by ideas, and therefore easily susceptible of impressions”, Samuel Johnson)!
The Novel in Pieces examines the nuts and bolts of the English novel, including narration, character, chapter divisions and “the representation and orchestration of emotion”. Theory, from the first reviews of the late eighteenth century to examples of late twentieth century “theory in the novel” by David Lodge and Ian McEwan, traces the development of critical reflection. Part 5, The Novel in Circulation, follows the creation and reception of English fiction, discussing the process of writing and reading novels and how the experience has changed. In London, the first of four essays looking at the Geographies of the Novel, Cynthia Wall uses the historic setting of many novels from Chaucer to Monica Ali as “a microcosm of the Companion as a whole”. The “readerly security” of provincial novels then leads into Intranationalisms – that sense of “anywhere’s nowhere” – and the geopolitical aesthetic. The final part covers much the same ground, from the domestic novel to World Literature.
The Companion series are more than simple student textbooks, telling readers what they already know, but a compendium of authoritative yet accessible essays written by academics, which bring traditional subjects up to date, introduce new perspectives and hopefully stimulate fresh thinking. Each essay includes references for further reading, making this particular Companion instructive and inspirational for both students and general readers.
