Both in theory and in practice Forster declines to restrict the novelist's ancient liberties. The richness of the novel, for him, lies in its range of levels. There is the "story"; then there are the persons of the story who act and speak; then there is the "inner life" of the characters, to be overheard and translated by the author; and, finally, there is the philosophic commentary of the author. Plot, characters, philosophy: each has a life of its own and threatens to expand until it menaces its competitors. If the novel restrict itself to action and speech, it does no more than reduplicate—and with the subtraction of mimes present "in person"—the drama or even the biography. To avoid being less, the novel must be more. "A memoir," says Forster, "is history, it is based on evidence…. And it is the function of the novelist to reveal the hidden life at its source: to tell us more than could be known. In daily life we never understand each other…. But people in a novel can be understood completely by the reader, if the novelist wishes; their inner vision as well as their outer life can be exposed." If, on the other hand, the "inner life" become all, then, like some parts of Proust's À la Recherche, the novel turns into a psychological treatise and the persons decompose into their constituent moods and "intermittences." (pp. 49-50)
To Forster, then, the novel has its own function, that of a persuasive equilibrism: it must balance the claims of the existence and the essence, of personalities and ideas. To Forster, values are more important than facts; and the real values are friendship, intellectual exploration, insight and imagination, the values of the "inner life." But observation and interpretation, though terminal values, are, biologically, parasitic upon the body and the life of action. Forster's own work very satisfyingly preserves this equilibrium both in its repertory of characters and in its narrative method. (p. 50)
This is a free excerpt of 327 words. There are 938 words (approx.
3 pages at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Forster, E(dward) M(organ) 1879–1970: Critical Essay by Austin Warren Access Pass.
