Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Why are novels called "novels"? shouldn't they (now) be called "olds" or
"passe's".

Maybe i just resent this artform because i don't have the time to enjoy it, but it seems to me that it is fast becoming obselete in the face of film and even of graphic novels, the rise of the comic to the status of prominent literature, or deception.

adjective or noun. therein lies the difference.

arguably there are probably more novels written/published today than ever before. POD adds to the numbers.

but i agree, i don't have any spare time for novels anymore. barely enough time for watchin' a flick. i live a novel life.

It's called the novel because central to its rationale is that it must forever renew itself -- that is, continually find new modes of being. Very few 'novels' really are novels as such. One can think of a handful of exponents: Proust, Kafka, Joyce, Nabokov plus a few others.

Perhaps you see the form as obsolete because too many books masquerading as novels merely repeat tired old formulas.

thanks, petercowland.

that's so true: the novel must be "novel," new, or it is nothing at all.