Customer Reviews

The True Story of the Novel

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This book was an education for me. I had been taught that the novel started with Richardson or if you must Defoe. Doody argues for a much earlier genesis, in the Greek romance. Whether you buy this argument or not depends on whether you define romance as part of the novel. But in the process I learned about the ancient Greek and Roman romances, and I went off and found the books she cited (Collected Ancient Greek Novels and separately the Roman romances), and read most of the romances. It doesn't take long, since they're short and there aren't that many. In particular I loved Petronius, Chariton, and Apuleius. Doody goes on to trace the transmission of the romance through the Renaissance, Boccaccio being the hero here. Printing played a key role in dissemination at this stage. Later on my own I was surprised to find images in Shakespeare that must have come right out of some of these ancient romances. And so on into our own time. Perhaps everybody knows this history, but I didn't. The title is a play on words having to do with the title of one of the old romances.

Do you dare to attempt a link of the novel to one distinct period or do you dare to call it an English invention? True that many stories, novels, and literature we know today comes from Europe and the English language, but what if the scope was much larger, much longer, and much too involving that the novel as we know it today is really just a small branch of an incredibly large network of writing and influence?

Doody raises these questions and provides wonderful detail and examples to prove her assertion that the novel's origins dates back farther and is influenced by much more than a common understanding would offer. This ambitious work spans many centuries and reaches many parts of the world in attempt to capture the influences of the novel we take for granted today.

Not only does this offer an insightful read, but it also treats the readers in a friendly way by presenting itself as a sort of an idiot's guide to literature's past. Doody avoids the literary form of complexities and allusions that may alienate the reader and make him or her feel like a dolt. This "True Story" is geared towards the "read" fans of novels. If only other literary critics could write as simple and beautifully as Doody there would be many more literary students.

Actually, this is new only to some sectors of the English-speaking canon, and its popularization in English-speaking countries. The rest of the world has clearly always known that: a)Greek ("Byzantine") novels, as well as the works of Lucian and Apuleius hold the seeds of the modern novel; b) the Italian novella established some of its canonic structural characteristics, and c) Cervantes and the Spanish picaresque did the same thing as Richardson, Defoe, Sterne, and Fielding, only 100 years before them.

I've enjoyed this long, rambling book immensely. You grab a chapter here or there, in no particular order, and suck it in. The fulcrum of the argument is the need for literary criticism to accept that ancient novels such as Daphnis and Chloe are not to be sidelined as mere Romances. Indeed, Romances are ipso facto miss-named. Further, the religious roots of ancient novel writing reveal the same archetypes found in all novel writing, viz the novel itself is, and will always be, a kind of journey of initiation. It's a miracle Doody never mentions Campbell in this theorizing. Instead a couple of other literary historians are cited regularly.
Ancient religion, ritual and myth are fundamental to Doody's discussion. I particularly like the focus, for example, on the importance of the Goddess in bronze age culture (Demeter, Isis)and how Greek myths as we know them are often deceptive and "false". The most pertinent example is how Europa in all of her ancient expressions is a victorious goddess riding the bull and not a victim of rape by the bull. Photographs are included in the book to illustrate this. In a sense this discussion by the author is outside the brief of the book but it resonates through the rest of the history. An illuminating chapter toward the end of the book is "Tropes of the Novel" which discusses the role of Eros, for example, and also use of "Ekphrasis" which refers to the use of paintings in stories. Doody is able to write academically, peppering almost every page
with Greek or Latin phrases not easily translatable, while at the same time, retaining a conversational, readable style. Above all she wants to stress the "feminine" meaning in all novel writing which forms a strangely seamless line from ancient writing to the present.

This is one of the most presumptious and arrogant works I have ever had to read. Doody's arguments are poorly presented, and the reader gets lost in her difficult, convoluted, circular explanations. The grammar and usage mistakes (fragments, run-on sentences and comma splices) detract from the overall message of the book. The topic is interesting, until you try to follow Doody through her presentation. Questions are posed, and if the reader expects an answer one is DISAPPOINTED. The explanation of the tropes of a novel make several unbending assumptions, and overreach the evidence. Not worth the money...and if it required reading for a class I am very sorry.