Summary
In the open novel, these winds, which are the winds of history, beat upon the characters. Indeed history is itself a character in this kind of novel, even if the author chooses not to introduce real-life historical figures. In, for instance, that fine novel by Elizabeth Bowen, The Heat of the Day, the second world war is a character as the Napoleonic Wars are not in Jane Austen's beautifully self-enclosed novels.
See the full content of this document
Extract
Open to the World?
One may make a distinction between two types of novel: the self-enclosed and the open. The distinction is not absolute. Such things never are. Genre fiction may merge with what is called the literary novel, for instance. Still the categori...
See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
