Walter Mosley: “A Novel is Not a Machine”

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Very often one finds literary editors, critics, and some fiction writers talking about novels as if they were mechanical things, finely, or not so finely tooled machines designed to impart a multilayered series of events in which certain human beings, their works, actions, responses, and sometimes their very lives are in the balance, creating projects and problems destined to be toiled over until the issues they face are resolved, one way or another.  To a great degree these technical interpretations of fictional narratives are valid, that is to say, yes, a novel is a construct of ideas that work together, attempting to tell a story via plot, characterization, physical description, dialogue, and motive, all ending in a resolution or a series of resolutions that, for lack of a better explanation, make sense to the reader.

When attempting to comprehend or create the subtleties of a work of fiction it is useful to try and understand the underlying structures of the work. Who is the main character? When were they born? Where do they live? What are her or his proclivities? What do they want? What stands in their way? Who is there to help or hinder this hero? When were these helpers born? Etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum…

If the structure-minded critic finds a flaw in any of these basic tenets they make a little check on the negative side of the interpretation of the work. This exposition might hurt the credibility of the story; it may end up rendering the entire structure (the novel-machine) inoperable in the minds of potential readers. Or, at least, that is what this particular brand of critic might desire. This is because when reviewing anything as one would a mechanical device, any flaw encountered is a grievous error.

But a novel is not a machine. Or, more accurately, it is not a device that has a singular function. In a way the novel might be seen to have a particular purpose, which is the story it tells. After all, the novel can be seen as a given concatenation of words designed to tell a story to one human, or many humans, one at a time. For instance, John reads a novel and thinks that the main character, Dorn, is a jerk who should have been put in prison at the end of the tale. Nissa, John’s friend, feels that Dorn is misunderstood and even though she agrees that he’s at least a fool, she believes that he has been hoodwinked by his friends and the system of the world he inhabits. Peter, Nissa’s stepfather, couldn’t get past page 37 of the book. He can’t make heads or tails out of what’s going on in the story.

Was it the intent of the author of Dorn that there should be so many, vastly different interpretations of her tale? Did the author know that somebody, somewhere in the future, would start a religion called Dorn based on her ideas but expressed in words never written in that book?

Every reader reads, and in some ways creates a different book in their mind. The characters have a unique look in each and every mind’s eye. The reasons that are given in the fiction are scrutinized and understood in as many ways as there are readers, maybe even more, seeing that even an individual reader might apprehend the world one way today and then, sometime later, they might have a completely different worldview.

Let’s not forget the original definition of the term, the word novel; it means that you’re about to encounter something original, different, unique.

Words, ideas, characters, and resolutions mean different things to different people. Taking this statement as true, but not actually truth, a novel is not, cannot be a machine. To judge a work of fiction as a finite, single purpose structure would be the one and only grievous error.

Okay, you say, you’re telling me that a novel might have some mechanical qualities, but it cannot be seen as a machine. Fine. Then what is a novel?

I think that a novel is, first and foremost, a celebration, a party you’ve received an invitation to, but when you get there, you realize that you don’t know the host or very many of the celebrants. You might fall in love at that party and, then again, you might fall asleep on the sofa. If this soiree was a novel the writer of that book might want you to see how superfluous the party givers were and how needful and deep the main character is.

The writer thinks that the person seducing the main character is just some flotsam, hardly worth a second look. But the reader might very well see something else. He, the reader, thinks that the woman the protagonist meets represents just what he needs to throw off the shackles of a middleclass, suburban life. Another reader might feel that the story strikes a different chord, an arpeggio that contains in a crystal note the supposed seductress who is telling the truth even while lying. There are no other options given to her by the clanking, repetitive ideas about women in this writer’s weltanschauung.

All the readers of Dorn have interpretations that come from their histories, their particular intellects, and desires, and yearnings they might not be aware of. That’s the beauty of fiction; it is a continually mutating protoplasm in the minds of readers. This colorless, almost invisible ever transforming blob of reactions is the party. It is not a machine. It is not good or evil, bad or boring, it is a cry in the dark, a hope looking for a harbor, something that pretends to make sense but, in actuality, is much deeper than that.

And let’s not forget the original definition of the term, the word novel; it means that you’re about to encounter something original, different, unique. And so, when the critic in your newspaper, your classroom, when the editor in your mind, or of your book, tells you that your novel would make a poor coffee percolator (or potboiler) you tell them, thank you, because the novel you created (and that is recreated by each and every one of your readers) is an ever-transforming document that grants the power to evolve in the minds of the many. From Conan the Barbarian to Othello the written word has the potential for transformation no one can predict.

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Ghalen: A Romance in Black by Walter Mosley is available via Amistad.