The Value of the Novel

The Value of the Novel offers a reappraisal of the political and literary value of the novel as a genre.

Peter Boxall (Author)

9781107057494, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 September 2015

168 pages, 1 b/w illus.
22.6 x 14.3 x 1.4 cm, 0.31 kg

'… Offers a deft, timely, and persuasive argument for reexamining some of our most intuitive assumptions about the novel, including how it functions, how it has evolved, and what we can expect from it moving forward. … That Boxall's little book raises so many large questions is not, I think, a weakness but one of its many strengths. … For scholars and students interested in digging into the structural 'code' of the novel form … Boxall's volume will be indispensable.' R. John Williams, Novel

Peter Boxall's The Value of the Novel offers a reappraisal of the ethical, political and literary value of the novel as a genre at turning point in the history both of literature and of criticism. As the dominant critical concerns of the twentieth century faded, and new cultural and technological environments emerged, Boxall argues that we lost our collective sense of the purpose of the novel. This book responds to this predicament by demonstrating why and how the novel matters to us today. Ranging from Daniel Defoe to Zadie Smith, Boxall shows how the formal properties of the novel allow us to imagine the worlds in which we live. This is a vibrant, compelling and richly informed critical perspective that asks us to see anew how central fiction is to our idea of the world, and how richly the novel informs our attempts to understand our present and our future.

1. The novel voice
2. Is this really realism?
3. The novel body
4. Making time matter
5. The novel, justice and the law.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literature: history & criticism [DS]