Coping with different kinds of novel

T he easiest novel to read and study is the one that presents a seemingly realistic picture of ordinary life but there are many novels where the oddity, opacity or exaggeration of the writing is what most strikes the reader. Two such novels — one by Joyce, one by Dickens — are considered in this chapter, but the conclusions drawn should apply to many more novels which depart from the conventions of realism. The principal idea in this chapter is that, when the technique of the novel obtrudes (and this refers not only to an unusual style, but to such things as exaggerated characterisation or a very intrusive narrator), the reader is obliged to pay more attention to the manner and style of narration than is necessarily the case when studying a realistic novel.