The Novel of Ideas

[Kafka's Crow]

I think that there are two major types of novels:


Novel of Situations
Novel of Ideas

Most novels belong to the first type. They tell a story, depict and narrate events and the reader has to make connections between motives, events and situations to understand the plot. Novel of ideas depicts more abstract concepts: the dilemmas, the psychological and spiritual aspects of characters. Where Dickens and George Eliot etc are great at depicting situations with some hints of psychological studies, the primary purpose of their narratives is to tell a story. In case of the rarer type of novel, authors like Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann and Walker Percy have some ideas and ideals to impart to their readers and they make no secret of this intention. The novelist talks ideas unabashedly, his characters deal in ideas, they are on a quest for spiritual and psychological fulfillment.

I am re-reading The Moviegoer after 17 years and gosh, what a book! Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is another such story still I would call The Moviegoer 'The Great American Novel of Ideas'. It is a shame that Walker Percy is not very well known on this side of Atlantic. He deserves more recognition. Who are the novelists of ideas in English Literature? John Cowper Powys? I don't know any other. My knowledge of the English novel is very inadequate, in fact I had never read a Dickens novel till six months ago (now I have read three). So where is the British Jack 'Binx' Bolling? Somerset Maugham's Larry does not count because he found an answer in India. I am talking about those who just search, the ones who suffer from the Existentialist angst, they never find an answer. So who is the British seeker unto truth?

[cacian]

Interesting.
What is the difference between a situation and in idea?
I know novels seek to entertain both but aren't in fact doing same but only in reverse?

[Kafka's Crow]

Interesting.
What is the difference between a situation and in idea?
I know novels seek to entertain both but aren't in fact doing same but only in reverse?

You can and should depict a situation or an occurrence from a suitable distance to get the artistic focus right. This is what makes Tolstoy 'greater' than Dostoevsky. A novel of idea is a product of an all consuming passion and unanswerable question, a never-ending search. It has more of a Kierkegaardian 'sickness unto death' a total and utter restlessness and a disquiet so overwhelming that it kills all action and even affects expression (form). While traditional novel revels in the Aristotelian virtues of unity of time and space, of beginnings, middles and ends, a novel of idea is as indefinite as the search it depicts. It is impure but it is not didactic as there is nothing to preach. Dickens is more didactic than Maan. Maybe Samuel Beckett fits in this bracket. His novels are so angst-ridden that they surpass all expression and become pictures of this dissatisfaction. I think you are on the right track. A typical novel of ideas provides as much 'entertainment' as, say, Malone Dies before Beckett completes the total exclusion of his readers in The Unnameable.

[Charles Darnay]

A good novel should have a balance of both, and many do. When a novel is all "situation" we elitists tend to label it "fluff"(or such variances). When it is all "idea" it is either labelled "pure genius" by sophists, or "drivel" by academics.

The authors you listed above (Dickens, Eliot, Mann, Dostoevsky) all maintain the balance. Perhaps Mann has more of an overt philosophic angle than Dickens, but Dickens certainly is pushing a socio-political philosophic agenda. But both authors are great and have their place, primarily for the characters (and the philosophy or ideas explored through the characters).

[kelby_lake]

I think that as fiction, the ideas should never take over the situations. If you want to write a book about ideas, write a pamphlet. The ideas should be naturally woven into the plot and characters, so we can enjoy the novel on a very basic level but find further depths when we think about the ideas. That's why I love Hardy :)

[Anton Hermes]

I love the novel-of-ideas. I'm glad Beckett already got mentioned; that trilogy Molloy-Malone Dies-The Unnameable is just a landmark of the form: only the merest excuse for a plot framing hilariously overwrought monologues. Beckett's novels are a different beast from his drama, but he was a master of both.

Melville is another author for whom plot was second to philosophy. Moby-Dick is crammed with comic ruminations on various subjects, and the final chase scene seems rushed. Less well-known works by Melville such as Mardi and his final novel The Confidence Man are also terrific examples of the novel-of-ideas. Their linear structure is almost irrelevant. The important thing is the development of the ideas.

I have to say, though, that there are legitimate criticisms of the form. The dependence on ideas puts a great emphasis on the quality of the author's intellect, and not every writer is a Melville. The lack of character development is one of the most common pitfalls of the novel-of-ideas, particularly those with a large cast of characters. An ingenious writer can compensate for this with some creative digressions or illuminating details. More often, however, the characters just seem anonymous and colorless.

[Charles Darnay]

Melville is another author for whom plot was second to philosophy. Moby-Dick is crammed with comic ruminations on various subjects, and the final chase scene seems rushed.

To say that Mody-Dick's plot is secondary, and point to the final chase as evidence does not add up. There is plenty of action or "situation" in the novel, from which the comic ruminations and philosophy spawns - not the other way around.

Because the culture of summarization has to be explain to explain anything in two sentences or less, Moby-Dick has become the novel about a captain chasing a whale - but if you define the plot of the book by that event (taking up the last 40 pages or so of the book) you have missed something.

[mal4mac]

I think that there are two major types of novels:


Novel of Situations
Novel of Ideas

Most novels belong to the first type. They tell a story, depict and narrate events and the reader has to make connections between motives, events and situations to understand the plot. Novel of ideas depicts more abstract concepts: the dilemmas, the psychological and spiritual aspects of characters. Where Dickens and George Eliot etc are great at depicting situations with some hints of psychological studies, the primary purpose of their narratives is to tell a story. In case of the rarer type of novel, authors like Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann and Walker Percy have some ideas and ideals to impart to their readers and they make no secret of this intention. The novelist talks ideas unabashedly, his characters deal in ideas, they are on a quest for spiritual and psychological fulfillment.


Eliot and Dickens do more than just tell a story, the psychological and spiritual aspects of characters are also revealed. Although, the psychology and spirituality in their admirable character is usually quite straightforward; a Christian morality, without dogma. For the "novel of ideas", in the 20th century novel the best British examples, are perhaps Huxley and Orwell. The former looks at a broad range of "big ideas", like "drugs and spirituality", "Darwinism", etc,... the latter explores totalitarian politics. You've no doubt heard of their main novels :) For another one packed full of ideas, try Point Counter Point by Huxley, although it suffers a bit from the "lack of characterisation" problem.... but the ideas really fizz...

I agree with Kelby that the ideas should be naturally woven into the plot and characters, and agree that Hardy does this. There's also a darker, more existential, undercurrent than you find in Dickens, perhaps because he was heavily influenced by Schopenhauer - Conrad also.

Although Dickens is pushing a socio-political agenda, it is a straightforward, simple one. Nothing like as complex as the "ideas men". I'm not criticising this - parts of his social reform agenda actually got implemented with some benefit to humanity, which can't be said about Huxley's drug culture or Hardy's Schopenhauerian quietism.

[Anton Hermes]

To say that Mody-Dick's plot is secondary, and point to the final chase as evidence does not add up. There is plenty of action or "situation" in the novel, from which the comic ruminations and philosophy spawns - not the other way around.

Because the culture of summarization has to be explain to explain anything in two sentences or less, Moby-Dick has become the novel about a captain chasing a whale - but if you define the plot of the book by that event (taking up the last 40 pages or so of the book) you have missed something.
All I meant about Moby-Dick was that Melville seemed to revel in his philosophical digressions and ended up having to hurry through the plot.

Not to fault his ability as a writer and thinker, but none of Melville's work was particularly well paced or plotted. He repeatedly used an ocean voyage as a stand-in for a plot: it was just a coherent framework for the odd events and his flights of fancy. Just look at Pierre, where he had to make up a "plot" that was just a long, slow, inexorable slide into disgrace and death.

[kelby_lake]

I agree with Kelby that the ideas should be naturally woven into the plot and characters, and agree that Hardy does this. There's also a darker, more existential, undercurrent than you find in Dickens, perhaps because he was heavily influenced by Schopenhauer - Conrad also.


I love the darkness in Hardy. It's grotesque in some places.

[Corona]

To start with I apologize for my bad English!
Well, my idea is that a great novel - like all great art, including cinema, for example! - should reach a good balance of idea and situation.
That's to say the one part has not to "take over" the other one, but on the same time a perfect corrispondence between "situation" and "ideas" could also lead to a sort of drying of the novel! I don't know how to actually explain it plainly, but let's put it this wat: Art should poeticize and in order to do that there should still me something "missing" - I think Deleuze explained it well in his essay "Logique du sens" - otherwise a perfect corrispondence wouldn't produce art!
Back to the topic, I agree there are generally two kind of novels, and I agree with some there should be such a balance not to make the work all about situations or ideas: a novel just about "ideas" would better be an essay on novel than a novel itself!
Anyway, the question you arised is also at the heart of 20th century French Literature. Authors such as Robbe-Grillet aimed to obtain a good balance of both narrative and essay about narrative devices in his books but the author I believe put it to a relevant level was André Gide with masterpiece, "Les Faux-Monnayeurs" many years before!

OT: I'm looking forward to read Beckett's trilogy and I'm quite interested in it! Have you ever read Beckett's "How it is"? Many consider it to be one of his finest masterpieces!

[Kafka's Crow]

Well, we have the novel of style, as in case of Ulysses and even Finnegans Wake where style is everything, not much happens in terms of content. There is not much of a balance between form and content. Content is secondary. We have the novel of ideas as in the case of, say 'The Magic Mountain'. Ideas are openly discussed and expressed, even pitted against other ideas, not much else happens. In case of exceptional writers, they don't have to achieve any balance. They just get on with it. 'The Moviegoer' is one such book. Nothing much happens except for existentialism, enui and angst. Dickens is great and has the perfect balance, so is George Eliot. But Dickens adumbrates his books like a God adumbrating the universe. There is nothing vague about him. He is in control. He knows where he is going with his narrative and where he wants it to go. There is no such god-like certainty in, say, Beckett, Mann or Dostoevsky. Jack 'Binx' Bolling is a searcher, like Alyosha Karamazov. He has no answers, just questions. His search is a part of his nature and he can't get rid of it even if he wanted to. This predicament is made clear by Beckett in his Trilogy. Molloy talks about the wonders awaiting the 'incurious seeker'. This instinctive and compulsive seeker is the greatest invention that came out of the novel of ideas. Hamlet fluctuates between the states of certainty and doubts. 'Europeans have their Hamlets, in Russian we have Karamazovs' says Dostoevsky. This uncertainty is not an easy thing to depict and has given us some of the most memorable characters in literature.

I am ashamed to admit that I have not read Beckett's 'How it is' yet! Waiting to buy the collectors edition of the complete works which is a bit pricey, this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Selected-Works-Samuel-Beckett/dp/0802145140/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=2CV5GQLNFKHIF&coliid=I27UXNP9WCUFIZ

[Anton Hermes]

I have not read Beckett's 'How it is' yet!

I liked that one a lot. It's a really powerful monologue that describes relationships as a series of predations. It would make a fascinating one-person show, too.

[Corona]

That's a really interesting matter!
Now I'm getting more and more interested in Beckett’s narrative, so after Cervantes and possibly Dostoevskij he may possibly be the one I'll pay attention to!
I have one copy of Beckett's "How it is", but it's translated in italian so I don’t know if it’s powerful enough to render it!
Last month I have finished reading both his "Fin de Partie" and "Godot" and they really amazed me. Also, his "Film" with Keaton is one of the most interesting short films I've ever seen.
As for Joyce I can't say for sure as I've not read his Finnegans' Wake which is generally considered his stylistic peak and I've still not read the whole Ulysses - I'm planning to do that as well - but I believe I can see you point!
Anyway, as far as I can tell, the Ulysses is one of those cases a stylistic novel perfectly works as Joyce was somehow able to achieve the "creation" of a world in which everything may be symbolic because each element is connected to the other so the narrative "expands" itself: I would say Joyce was able to "extract" from a relative small number of events their "polysemic" nature, so each chapter demands a reader-exegete who is able to link every object to other "series" of meanings so you have a bodily reading, a mythological one, etc. ; there indeed you don't have a God orientating or centralizing "events", but an excess the reader has to grasp. The question arising is: although there’s not a traditional balance making it a novel of ideas could there still be a “centralization” of the problem between “ideas” and “occurances”, a kind of equilibrium like that achieved by Gide’s masterpiece? I still don’t know, but I tend to believe Joyce’s Ulysses still worked around a basical plot; it’s just that he exceeded the occurances withing it by presenting the greater nature of those events, making them “collapse” from the inside.
I’ll have to read the whole novel, though, but I have to read Beckett before and the brothers karazamov before!

[Johnny Rich]

There was an interesting piece in this week's New York Times (to which I would add a link if the forum allowed me) on whether novels of ideas have run aground with two intelligent perspectives on the topic.
Benjamin Moser, in particular, challenges the concept of a novel of ideas on the basis that there is an inherent tendency towards implausibility, particularly in characters that slip into being mere voice-pieces for the author's philosophical treatise. Moser cites Ayn Rand as an example, but contrasts her with Dostoevsky who successfully articulates a profound moral exploration through character and plot.
As an author of what I am proud to call a much-acclaimed novel of ideas myself (The Human Script), I can vouch for the fact that this tendency needs to be consciously and conscientiously resisted. I don't believe the genre – if we can call it that – has run aground at all. In the US, there are David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Safran Foer and others. In the UK, there are Tom McCarthy, Will Self, David Mitchell and – some would add – me.
I do find it interesting, however, that I am struggling to think of women authors to add to the list who are still writing. Iris Murdoch of course shines like a beacon among philosophical fiction writers, but who is there now? I'd be delighted to hear suggestions....

[Iain Sparrow]

I do find it interesting, however, that I am struggling to think of women authors to add to the list who are still writing. Iris Murdoch of course shines like a beacon among philosophical fiction writers, but who is there now? I'd be delighted to hear suggestions....

Stephenie Meyer.

[ladderandbucket]

I do find it interesting, however, that I am struggling to think of women authors to add to the list who are still writing. Iris Murdoch of course shines like a beacon among philosophical fiction writers, but who is there now? I'd be delighted to hear suggestions....

Marilynne Robinson. Her ideas are deeply unfashionable (she is a Christian) and I don't subscribe to them myself, but I think she can hold her intellectual ground against any other writer today. Also her prose is beautiful.

[Eiseabhal]

Any novel written with half a brain and intended to engage a reader with a brain has ideas in it. If that is all it has it isn't a novel. It's an abstract treatise or piece of philosophical speculation. If it has no ideas it's probably a bonk buster.

[Johnny Rich]

That's true, but there's an important difference between a novel with ideas in it and a novel of ideas. Neither Joyce's Ulysses or Sartre's La Nausée could possibly be described as "an abstract treatise or piece of philosophical speculation" (nor, for that matter, a "bonk buster"). In each case the reader is drawn into the story and wants to read on because the story compels them, but what drives the story? What makes it unfold as it does? The author makes choices based on exploring their philosophical argument. The ideas are made gripping by the story and the suspense of story turns on the excitement generated by the next turn of the argument, rather than by, for example, the physical jeopardy of a thriller.

I thought carefully about these choices in writing The Human Script (please take a look at bit.ly/humanscript, if you're interested). I was anxious to let the ideas unravel in a captivating way, but in the process, I did not want to lose the readers' emotional investment in the principal character. There have been many kind responses to the book, particularly in praise of how thought-provoking it is, but the responses that really please me are those readers who say they were gripped or moved to tears. I could have written "an abstract treatise", but, by choosing to write a novel, I chose to embed the argument in a story that had to be every bit as important as the philosophical content.

[Eiseabhal]

Ulysses has linguistic interest but Sartre is just a dull Marxist who knew f all about human beings. His supposed explanation of why his mates ran away in 1940 and left Highland soldiers to die for France is completely without any intellectual or moral depth.

[New Secret]

Intriguing thought. Situations are character driven where the action is central to the story and novel of ideas would feature explanatory text with a slow advancing plot. In the novel of ideas a character would be studious and reminiscent, allowing for the unfolding of cumbersome speculation to explore a theme or theory. In the novel of situations character dialogue is shorter and the action drives the story, leaving less narrative and a quicker rhythm.

I say a novel of ideas would need to express things that the reader has interest in and explore those ideas in new angles to make them provocative and fascinating.