The Occasional Novel: American Fiction and the Man of Letters

THE OCCASIONAL NOVEL: AMERICAN FICTION AND THE MAN OF LETTERS Daniel Aaron Harvard University All of us, I suppose, are familiar with a category of fiction, the oneshot or occasional novel written by men of letters—critics, poets, philosophers—which occupies an undefined space in the interstices of literary history. Sometimes these random forays into novel or short-story writing result in literary curiosities, valuable, perhaps, as social or autobiographical documents but otherwise of small distinction. But if the writer (whether he be a literary critic, theologian, or scientist) has a gift for language; and if the essayistic fiUer that usually makes up significant portions of occasional novels by non-novelists has substance as well as stylistic felicity; and if the author's mind is intelligently reflective in its own right; and if his scenes and descriptions have a modicum of reality and his characters are not merely animated ideas, then his novel may possess a dimension not ordinarily present in the work of proper novelists. How are these "occasional novelists," as I shall call them (Samuel Johnson, W. H. Mallock, Newman, Swinburne, Henry Adams, Santayana , Edmund Wilson, and Lionel Trilling are a few examples), to be distinguished from out-and-out practitioners? Novel writing for them, as I have indicated, is a side business, not a central preoccupation. They are less likely to be caughtup in thecraftoffiction. This is especially true of a kind of amateur novelist I don't intend to deal with here: religious and political reformers, or journalists, unfrocked politicians, and demireps seeking to cash in on saleable experiences. But it can also be said of the intellectual or of the man of letters turned novelist (including those who are skilled analysts of fiction) that their novels in many cases are impatient and disrespectful, if not oblivious, to what to HenryJames were adorable obstacles. Prose style is of more commandingimportance in the occasional novel than plot, point of view, and characterization, as if the author hopes to achieve through verbal facility and ingratiating argument what he is incapable of attaining through narrative action. In his hands the novel becomes primarily something other than story- 128Daniel Aaron telUng and literary entertainment. It can be an envelope for a set of principles, a surrogate memoir or history, a dramatized philosophy, an apologia, a device to makethe esoteric exoteric. The same mightbe said, I realize, of novels written by proper novelists, but the occasional novel seems to me to be distinguished by certain hallmarks. I have mentioned some of them already, but let me now try to list them more systematically. The occasional novel is likely to be schematic, unspontaneous, programmatic, self-conscious. Character and situation are kept subordinate to thematic purpose; intellect overrides imagination. In the occasional novel, the authorial voice is persistently loud and clear. The reader tends, finally, to be more impressed by the quality of the author's mind (often communicated through the insertion of reveries, dreams, musings) than he is by the charm or verisimilitude of the author's fictions. And whereas it is dangerous in bonafide novels to attribute to the author die ideas and sentiments of selected pontificators, it is less risky in the occasional novel. The hero, whether or not the author intends it, is usuaUy the author or a good part of him. In the occasional novel, the author's intellectual apparatus is very much on display. The drama is concentrated on the level of ideas, the writing loaded with literary allusions, frequently erudite; and the characters engage in lengthy discussions on art, politics, and morals. The occasional novel is usually topical. It focuses on types that figure in a designated social setting in a period encompassing the author's lifetime. It tends to be personal, autobiographical, biographical with elements of the roman à clef. And because it assumes a readership that can identify and savor allusions to a shared intellectual experience, its appeal is necessarily restricted. Unless redeemed by literary graces or a suspenseful story line, it is always in danger of hardening into the documentary or the treatise. The occasional novel leans toward the moralistic and the didactic. The author is conveying a message of sorts. Even though he...