What Is A Good Novel?

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What is a Good Novel?

    Modernism is a generic term applied to the beginnings of the "new literature" that came with the twentieth century. In Great Britain, it followed Victorian period, steeped with grandiose subject matter and moralizing, didactic themes and lessons. In 1901 Arnold Bennet published The "Average Reader" and the Recipe for Popularity. He describes in this short essay somewhat satirically, what to do when one wants to write a novel that will have mass appeal. In this essay it will be supposed that the goal of the novel is either to entertain, enlighten, or to do both. This depending on whether it is a purely entertaining novel, or one that is written with some aesthetic technique or value with an effect beyond mere entertainment. It is worth noting that the contemporary British novelist Anthony Burgess has said writing novels should entertain the novelist more than any one during the composition stage. This makes sense to me and I can apply the same maxim to writing scholarly papers for academic merit. When enjoyment in the process of creation exists, then perhaps this spirit is transferred to the reception by the art-patron.
    I will take for granted that the serious fiction-writer has a harder time getting money for his or her writing than the popular novelist, who writes perhaps with a formula or with simple, easy-to-understand sentence structure. My example for this (the post-modern era), Danielle Steele. I have never read a book by Ms. Stee...

Submitted by: digitalessays
Date Submitted: 09-07-06 2:56am
Category: English
Words: 1396
Pages: 5.58