BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'

Subject: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 08:02 AM

In a thread up above the line called Fiction Books about folk singers " a discussion has developed about the distinction between the term "fiction book" and "novel".

Since following-up on this would mean drifting that thread away from it's original purpose - someone hunting for a particular story - I thought I'd start this spin-off thread.

The immediate reason is that I happened to be reading something by Ursula Leguin, in the introduction to a collection or (mostly) linked stories, "The Birthday of the World", in which she touched on this, and chimed in with somethong I had been thinking:

"Once more I plead for a name, and thus recognition, for this fictional form (which goes back at least as far as Elizabeth Gskell's Cranford and has become increasingly frequent and interesting): a book of stories linked by place, characters, theme and movement, so as to form not a novel...It does things a novel doesn't do. It is a real form, and deserves a real name."

She goes on to suggest calling it "a story suite". I have a feeling that we might be able to find a better term for it than that. Any ideas?

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 08:07 AM

Tony Blair's autobiography?

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 08:42 AM

What things does Ms Le Guin think Cranford does 'that a novel doesn't do'? Or conversely, what is it that a novel does that 'Cranford' doesn't? Does not the whole concept rather beg the question by trying to over-define the term 'novel' to designate only one form of tight-knit narrative with an Aristotelian sort of 'unity of action'? ~~ whereas the term conventionally covers far more than that. If it won't do for 'Cranford', then will 'Huckleberry Finn' qualify? Or 'David Copperfield'? And, if so, what about 'Joseph Andrews'? Or 'Don Quixote'?

Why not just stick with the term we have, modified where necessary by such categorical adjectives or qualifiers as 'picaresque', 'episodic', or whatever; rather than trying to over-categorise and so fragment the concept of 'narrative fiction' into a confusing plethora of heads and sub-heads which will surely only lead to definition boundary disputes, and distract, and detract, from appreciation of the work we are engaging with?

I am all for taxonomies, as anyone who knows me will have observed. But, as the narrator of that great novel [if it is one] 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' never tires of observing, "There are limits to practically everything."

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 09:40 AM

The term I use when necessary is the self-explanatory "story sequence." I didn't invent it, but I've known it for decades.

If "sequence" is too chronological for LeGuin's book, I suppose "suite" is as good a choice as any; it implies more unity than "collection," less than even "episodic novel."

I don't think the issue is over-definition so much as the flexibility and clarification that additional terms allow.

"Fiction book," of course, doesn't clarify. It generalizes further than some of us are comfortable with, but one can't expect specialist precision from nonspecialists.

Back in cave days, however, everybody seemed to distinguish automatically between novels and examples of other genres. I take it that McGrath and MtheGM are familiar with the reductively dismissive position that *all* communication is "just a kind of story-telling."

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 10:18 AM

The point is that the stories in a book like this are complete in themselves, but they affect each other, and there is often what they call a "story arc" in relation to a TV series (eg a Star Trek series) but they.

"Picaresque novels" might fall into this category - but they are a specific variety with particular charecteristics about the kind of characters involved and the setting ia particularly episodic quality. And you could hardly call "Cranford" picaresque...

"Episodic novel" is fair enough - but it doesn't wholly eliminate the need for an additional term. It just shifts things slightly, and opens up the question "what is the right term for novels which are not episodic?"

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 12:37 PM

I've seen the term "modular fiction" applied to some modern works of episodic fiction. It implies that the episodes are not only discrete, but that they could be stacked together in different ways to create different overall story arcs.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 12:58 PM

When I saw the title of this thread, I thought of James Joyce's 'Ulysses'. Hundreds of pages, and basically all that happens is - a man takes a walk.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 01:16 PM

I somehow don't think you can have read it leeneia.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 02:52 PM

Also, there is the frame story, where one story links a bunch of other stories together, e.g. The Arabian Nights, where Scheherazade tells stories to her husband to keep from getting killed; The Canterbury Tales, where a bunch of pilgrims tell stories to one another to pass the time while traveling; and The Decameron, where a group of people tell tales to one another during an extended stay at a country house where they have gone to escape the plague.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 04:25 PM

You can also have a kind of Chinese Box form, in which a story has a story with a story inside that and so forth. There are parts of Don Quixote where you get that - and I think some of the Arabian Nights stories have it as well.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: Burke
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 08:52 PM

Short-Story Cycle

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 10 - 10:21 AM

Precisely - from that link: "A short story cycle is a specific type of Short Story Collection wherein the Short Stories are specifically composed and arranged with the goal of creating an enhanced or different experience when reading the collection as a whole as opposed to its individual parts."

There seems to be quite a lot been written about this,going by a google of "short story cycle" - I hadn't com e across the term before. Nor evidently has Ursula LeGuin. But no consensus about what to call it:

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 10 - 10:22 AM

...about twenty labels, including "short story cycle," "story chronicle," "paranovel" and "anthology novel," have been applied to it over the years, Dunn and Morris argue for "composite novel" on the grounds that it recognizes the genre's kinship with the novel...

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: Bettynh
Date: 23 Sep 10 - 11:12 AM

Science fiction/fantasy writers love this sort of thing. Terry Pratchett has Discworld, but no other writers that I know of have written for that. Anne McCaffrey has created "universes" with histories that have incorporated several other writers as well. Star Wars and Star Trek have certainly been the most popular if not the best written.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 23 Sep 10 - 11:39 AM

Another format differing from the classical novel form:

Patrick O'Brian's great composite writing which is easiest referred to as "The Master and Commander series" comprises 20-1/2 books (the 1/2 being a story unfinished at the time of his death), each capable of standing alone, but O'Brian somewhere said he tended to consider that effort as one novel in X number of volumes.

Whatever you want to call it/them, read it! read it! read it! I just recently started it all over again, starting this time with the earliest-set novel, Master and Commander, and the series chronologically. Not necessary, but I think I'll enjoy reading the books in that sequence.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Sep 10 - 12:36 PM

How about concentrating on the author instead? For instance, "x'es" Saga?

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: Slag
Date: 23 Sep 10 - 01:53 PM

The Hardy Boys
The Foundation Trilogy and later "Series"
The Lone Ranger
Perry Mason

And in the visual media:
Laurel and Hardy
The Lone Ranger
Perry Mason
Soap Operas (and virtually any television staple)

etc.

They are all series and if you try to make this a genre it won't work. The is a much broader catagory: Serialized Literature

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 10 - 02:03 PM

"Genre" and "category" are more or less synonyms.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: mousethief
Date: 23 Sep 10 - 07:38 PM

Also, there is the frame story, where one story links a bunch of other stories together, e.g. The Arabian Nights, where Scheherazade tells stories to her husband to keep from getting killed; The Canterbury Tales, where a bunch of pilgrims tell stories to one another to pass the time while traveling; and The Decameron, where a group of people tell tales to one another during an extended stay at a country house where they have gone to escape the plague.

I, Robot is a frame story, the frame being the interview of the retiring head of the robotics corporation, in which she tells her many tales.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Fiction Books' that aren't 'Novels'
From: LadyJean
Date: 24 Sep 10 - 12:22 AM

"Opal, The Story of an Understanding Heart" and "The Education of Little Tree" claim to be true accounts of children growing up in remote parts of the U.S. "Opal" is alleged to be a diary. "Little Tree" a memoir. Both are fictions. "Opal" was one of my father's favorite books.