“What draws the reader to the novel is the hope of warming his shivering life with the death he reads about.” Walter Benjamin (Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach 88)
While taking a “Novel Theory and History” course at the University of Georgia, this particular quote really stuck out to me. At first I thought it was rather grim but quickly realized that in a way that was exactly what personally draws me to novels. Likewise, I think this is what draws people to movies and tv shows, which can almost be seen as an even more modern extension of the novel (of course we all know the book is better). So, this leads me to question that if the novel is a “genre of modernity” as viewed by some critics then what does this aspect say about modern society? If anything, as story telling progressed to novel writing which has progressed further to film making, this idea Benjamin suggests has become even more prominent.
When compared to more ancient societies, life appears to be much easier for the general populace in recent history as far as maintaining one’s needs and the overall quality of life. However, as technology and thought progresses so does a growing need for fulfillment and understanding in life, similar to the idea of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Nowadays, our news (aha another form tied to the birth of the novel) is filled with the latest shenanigans in celebrities’ lives and other such nonsense, proving that we really do have a preoccupation with the lives of others in order perhaps to uplift our own. This has given rise to popular news agencies like TMZ that many admit to be guilty pleasures. Taking this idea back to the earliest novels and one of the coined fathers of the novel, Daniel Defoe’s Roxana at times reads like a tabloid. Roxana is composed of the life adventures of a woman who fluctuates from rags to riches, complete with scandalous affairs with men. Yet, we draw some sort of meaning from this beyond her up-front “don’t be like me” –esque moral. These tales of personal scandal and scaling the social ladder (as well falling down it at times) permeate the stories that we find entertaining across all mediums from the beginning of our cultural ties to story telling.
All of this relates back to quote I initially started with from Benjamin: the novel draws readers by giving them tales about people and places they’ll never meet or see as a way of imparting life experiences through an entertaining medium. Our society has somewhat cynically developed this into an interest in tales that are so taboo or so horrible that they make us feel better about our own lives (cue the Jerry Springer Show). However, to give society a little benefit of the doubt, tracing all the way back to Roxana there is also something that draws us to characters who are drug through the dirt just to come out on top because in turn it gives us hope for our own lives. After all, hope keeps us coming back.
Sound and Vision 