Anti-Novel: An Experiment To Write Fiction Without Conventional Method
From quite sometime I have been working on topics related to fiction, style and storytelling, I have discussed trends and techniques, since I believe fiction is like a deep raging sea where different topics and angles pop-up immediately and one begins to ponder on these things. However, there are some theories regarding that are only used to bore the students in narrow classroom situations by teachers.
If you ask me what is literature? I could answer this question in two different ways and both mean the same thing.
(a) For me literature doesn't mean to convince people to your beliefs,
or
(b) For me literature means to convey your thoughts to people.
Though I like discussing about literature but I hate arguing about different things related to literature. In my study regarding novel, novel writing and different kinds of novels, I have come across with a new term called 'AntiNovel'. I really wanted to know what this term is all about and now I am sharing it with my readers:
According to The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theories: "An antinovel is any experimental work of fiction that avoids the familiar conventions of the novel, and instead establishes its own conventions."
While Encyclopedia Britannica (Online version): "New Novel, French nouveau roman, also called (more broadly) antinovel, avant-garde novel of the mid-20th century that marked a radical departure from the conventions of the traditional novel in that it ignores such elements as plot, dialogue, linear narrative, and human interest. Starting from the premise that the potential of the traditional novel had been exhausted, the writers of New Novels sought new avenues of fictional exploration. In their efforts to overcome literary habits and to challenge the expectations of their readers, they deliberately frustrated conventional literary expectations, avoiding any expression of the author’s personality, preferences, or values. They rejected the elements of entertainment, dramatic progress, and dialogue that serve to delineate character or develop plot."
The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theories mentions about antinovel that the antinovel usually fragments and distorts the experience of its characters, presenting events outside of chronological order and attempting to disrupt the idea of characters with unified and stable personalities. Some principal features of antinovels include lack of obvious plot, minimal development of character, variations in time sequence, experiments with vocabulary and syntax, and alternative endings and beginnings. Extreme features may include detachable or blank pages, drawings, and hieroglyphics.
This term was introduced by French critic and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in late 1940s, and since then writers started to experiment in this format. A. Gibbson in an article 'Postmodernity, Ethics and the Novel writes that in the postwar decades the term first came into critical and general prominence, anti-novel appeared as an expression of that nihilism that fills the vacuum created by the withdrawal of positive directives for living, and as an ignoble scene in which "the characters buzz about sluggishly like winter flies. More technically however, its distinctive feature was the anti-mimetic and self-reflective drawing of attention to its own fictionality.
According to Jean-Paul 'Portrait of a Man Unknown' written by Nathalie Sarraute in 1948, is the first antinovel. Some famous antinovels include: Rayner Heppenstall's The Connecting Door (1968), Evan Kuhlman's The Last Invisible Boy (2008) or Alice Kuipers's Life on the Refrigerator Door (2007).
However, literary critics have drawn a very thin line between a novel and antinovel, as both versions have some sort of story told by a character or characters.
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