Office Hours: 5 Elementary Things to Know in a Novel Course

I like to imagine my reader sitting enthusiastically across from me, a substantial wooden desk residing between us. Perhaps I’m pushing a stack of weatherbeaten, battle worn texts toward you, or perhaps you have your own pristine stack of newly purchased paperbacks, all fresh white pages, full of words but blank in terms of notation. It’s easy to get stuck when preparing for class, for any number of reasons. Perhaps the text is difficult and makes no sense, perhaps you are reading in a new language and struggling to find a foothold in not only that language but in the culture that it represents, or perhaps you are reading a text for the second or third time and struggling to find something original to say. Personally, I like to begin from the simple, and then expand out from there. So, let’s go over the five different ways you can walk into the literature classroom (or, more likely since many Universities have canceled in-person classes through the end of this semester) or log into the Zoom literature classroom with more confidence through some fairly simple steps.

1. Know the name of the novel.

   I know, I know, this seems ridiculously simple, but it is often the ridiculously simple that is lost in that panic or overwhelm that can begin to set in when we feel deadlines looming or life taking hold. So, open up to the first sheaf of that clean, full of promise class notebook and write down the title of the work you are reading. Perhaps even write down the titles of all the works you will be reading, in the order listed on the syllabus if you have the syllabus, and make sure to write down the title every time you begin a new set of notes on the text.

   Having taught literature courses for a number of years I can say from experience that knowing the title of the work that we are reading is often something that students forget but that can make a big difference. One thing to consider in relation to this is, what is the significance of the the title? Is it a character’s name? Is it a place? Is it a significant phrase that may appear in the text? Remember that the title is often the first representation of the work, a name that the author has chosen often painstakingly (think about how difficult it is just to title an essay for a composition 101 course, much less for a novel that is going to receive national and possibly global distribution) in order to try to entice the reader into spending their $14 on this volume. Something that always fascinates and perplexes me is the title of a novel I recommended on this blog a while back: Amalia. It seems to me the protagonist of the novel and the character we most closely follow is Daniel Bello, yet the titular character is his cousin Amalia. These are elements of the narrative you might notice and raise questions about in class. A lot of material can arise out of something as simple as the title of the novel.

   Bonus: If you want to go even deeper, consider doing a simple google search of the text to see if it had any other titles before publication, and who was involved in the naming process. Did the author even select the name? Did they dislike the name that was given? many novels begin with one name and are published under another, often with the help and insight of the publishing editor.

2. Know the full name of the author and refer to the author by their last name in class. Also, be able to spell the author’s name correctly (important on quizzes and in writing essays).

   Reading is a lot like making a garment, a lot goes into the process before we get to either opening to the first page of the text or sewing those first stitches, but it is important to take our time, to relish that cover or cover page and really take in the available information. Write the name of the author down beneath the title and begin to get used to referring to the authors by their last names as this is the standard both in the classroom and in writing. For example, when writing an essay typically we provide the author’s full name once, and unless there are multiple people with the same surname, we usually refer to the author solely by the author’s last name.

   Again, it is surprising how often students come into the classroom not knowing the name of the author, and I don’t say that from a place of judgment, there are plenty of times when I struggle to name the authors of works I have read as well, particularly if I was reading for pleasure, but in the classroom knowing the name of the author is an important step in being able to talk about the work. First because typically in the classroom, as in essays, we refer to the author quite regularly during discussions of a text, and second because as as a participant in any discussion one of the fastest ways to lose authority with your audience is to not know the most basic information about your subject.

   Bonus: Similar to the title, take a moment and see if the author has or had a pen name (an assumed name). Some pen names continue to be in use, for example, we continue to refer to Mary Ann Evans as George Eliot but Charlotte Bronte has ceased to be Currer Bell. Even contemporary female authors often conceal their gender by using their initials, but name changes or name alterations can apply to male authors as well. Thinking about naming and the names authors use: why F. Scott Fitzgerald and not Francis Fitzgerald or Francis Scott Fitzgerald, provides another lens on the text and its presentation. For example, in the case of George Eliot and Charlotte Bronte these authors used male pen names to reach a broader audience and to be able to establish their texts as serious works of literature. Is a similar logic at work for Fitzgerald, whose first name is gender neutral? These get into questions of reception and the book not as a work that is released in a vacuum, but circulates in a society with norms and biases.

3. Know the year the work was published.

   This is my last external bit of knowledge to enter the classroom knowing, but it is an important one. Actually, this was a question I was asked during the Q&A of my last conference presentation at NeMLA (not the primary question, but it came up). Enrique Gómez Carrillo’s El encanto de Buenos Aires (The Charm of Buenos Aires) was first published in 1914, look at that…all the information I just said we need to know packed into one sentence. Once I identified the year the work was published, the audience member I was having the exchange with lit up and mentioned a film that was made prior to the publication of the volume. This goes back to my previous point that works of literature are not published in a vacuum, they have a context and the year a work is published can go a long way in establishing that context. Indeed, the further you advance in your own studies the more these publication works will accumulate, until you have a constellation of works published around the same time. For example, students in my 20th century literature class read both The Great Gatsby and Manhattan Transfer (though separated by a handful of other novels). Knowing more than one text was published in the same year, or even what a timeline of works read looks like can contribute greatly to our understanding of time periods, literary movements, and just an overall sense of the temporal dimension of the works we are reading. That being said, try going back through the list of works you are reading (if you are reading for a course) and see what that list looks like if the works are listed in chronological order. Compare this to the order you are reading them in for your course and consider, if they are different, what other guiding logic might exist to structure the course material.

   Bonus: Find out what literary movement the text belongs to, and what, if any, influences it had and/or what it influenced. It never hurts to know what literary tradition the work you are reading contributes to. It is a bit of extra work and it is very likely (in an undergraduate course) that the instructor or professor will provide this information in class, but it never hurts to get ahead of the curve. If you’re studying on your own (perhaps following along on the book recommendations given here) this is information you will want to look up at some point.

4. What point of view is the text written in? Having trouble getting your footing in a text, for any number of reasons? Begin with the perspective of the narrative. Most commonly literature is written in first or third person, but every once in a while it is written in second person. (The most iconic example of a literary work written in the second person is Italo Calvino’s If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler). Once you have identified if the narrative is first or third (or maybe second, but this is extremely rare) consider questions like, if the narrative is in first person do you know who the narrator is? If it is in Third person is the perspective omniscient or limited? For example, War and Peace is an omniscient narrative that covers many different perspectives throughout the narrative, at other times the perspective may be limited, as in Nella Larsen’s novel Passing where the narrative is told in third person but is still told from Irene Redfield’s point of view without offering insight into the inner-workings of the other characters. Narratives that slip in and out out of the consciousness of the characters but is written in third person is called free indirect discourse and appears in both omniscient and limited novels. Sometimes the narrator may not be a character who appears in the novel but may have a distinct voice and character nonetheless, for example, Jane Austen is known for her humorous, snobby, and judgmental narrators. Note the narrator, even where it is not attached to a clear body, should never be mistaken for the author. Keep author and narrator separate.

5. Pay attention to the things that stand out to you, even if you think they may not be important. I could go on and on about the things to pay attention to in texts, but the above are all a good place to get started, and after this personal interest should take over. If you see a description you find particularly evocative, note it down. Even though I study cities and note down city references, I also write down descriptions of writing, reading, gardens, and dancing, not because these pertain to my research but because these subjects are particularly evocative for me. Particularly if you are early enough in your studies that you don’t have a research project, writing down those places in texts that stand out to you and stir up a feeling or emotion can be a good beginning on identifying the subject of an essay or a thesis project. Most courses literature courses require an original essay as one assignment, so collecting quotes on themes and subjects you enjoy is an invaluable resource later when trying to come up with a thesis. Do you like cars? I would read an essay on the representation of vehicles and vehicular travel in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, believe it or not its an important representation of urban growth.

Sometimes when we read it can be difficult, particularly when dealing with a deadline, to not let the pressure become too high, sucking the pleasure out of reading. That pressure can even rocket so high we start to struggle to remember simple details like titles and authors names, or may overlook them altogether. I’m hoping that whatever circumstances you are reading under, you can take this list into your future studies, personally driven or for a required course, and take some of the pressure out of reading by asking a few simple questions and reviewing a few simple details about the texts. These techniques have helped me through courses in more than one language in undergraduate and graduate school, and guide my own principles of teaching.

Did you learn anything from this post? If so press the like button and leave a comment below telling me what most stood out to you.