Mad Libs

All I keep thinking of when I read “A novel should make the reader…” is Kristin’s “become an arsonist.” Hee hee. I actually kind of hope the novel makes people want to do outlandish things, or at least things out of their ordinary realm.  I guess this is where Marxism, among others, comes in.  Anyway, I think what I’m trying to say is a novel is supposed to be a kind of beginning, a springboard or a launching point.  The novel shouldn’t end when it actually ends; in the most obvious circumstance, you might feel compelled to read it time and again, as some of the class has with Beloved, and still be able to find another viewpoint, cull new information or react differently than you had before. 

Aside from that, I was thinking about what Kim said at the end of class about our frustration with Julavits’ novel and where it derives from.  Are we frustrated because the novel doesn’t unfold the way we want it to? Because we’re confused? Or because the characters aren’t likable? That reality isn’t reality and truth doesn’t equate with logic?  Because it doesn’t do what we expect it to do?

But what is it that we expect? I, for one, was frustrated because I was so confused.  I’ll be honest, sometimes I’m lazy and don’t want to have to work to understand a book.  But at the same time I was fascinated by the fact that the distinction between “what happened” and “what might have happened” was blurry and that the fact that it was blurry didn’t matter.  I am used to clean-cut endings, to a denouement and resolution, to sharp clarity.  But those aren’t the qualities in a novel that would make a lasting impression on a reader, much less a culture.  Lazy reader that I claim to be, Julavits’ novel so piqued my interest that I took time to research the Dora case and now, Scheherazade.  I had to know more—I had to have a solid grasp on these stories inside the story so I could stay on my A-game, so I could keep up with Julavits and the intertwining storylines.

Now for John Gardner’s interpretation of the novel.  I’ve never thought of the end of a novel as a symphony.  I guess I’ve always vaguely pictured it as the end of some kind of intricate lanyard where all the “loose ends are tied up.” But his version hit home with me; most often when I read the ending, whether it resolves problems or not, I find myself picking out events that connect back to earlier situations.  I agree, then, that “unexpected connections begin to surface.”  But “hidden causes” don’t always “become plain,” and I’m not sure what he considers “organized,” but the good novels, in my opinion, leave more chaos than organization, more questions than answers.  I respect Jane Austen but never cared too much for her novels because—pardon the generalization—everyone gets married in the end and those who were single throughout the novel are cleanly and properly paired up. 

Let’s talk about the universe “reveal[ing] itself, if only for the moment, as inexorably moral.”  I think of Myra.  Her morals, to be frank, weren’t quite the same I would hold.  But still, at the novel’s end, I felt like she, and everything she stood for, was cheated.  The book ended happily aligned with Myron’s morals.  So I think it’s worth it to consider, before we can test the ending on our moral barometer, whose standards we’re following.

I can’t help but wonder if Gardner had any specific novels in mind when he concocted his response. For me, anyway, it’s hard to think of the novel as an abstract.  I need solid examples.  So when he suggests that in the novel we “see the responsibility of free will,” I think of how this applies to the novels I’ve read.  Everyone has a choice, he says, and these choices have consequences.  Mary could have chose a different way to channel her insecurities and her feelings to invisibility.  The woman in one of Eva Luna’s stories that I read this summer chose to be locked in a basement for forty years by her lover.  But then again, how much of a choice do these characters have? The human drive and emotions are strong and often overshadow sensibility.  In doing what she did, we see that Mary had reached her boiling point with her mother, her family, her school, her life.  And do we choose who to fall in love with?  The woman in the basement let herself rot because she believed the man she loved—who grew tired of her—would come back to feed her, to sing with her.

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