Rating: 5* of fiveOne of the best books I've read about writing novels. A truly inspirational guide to a complex and daunting effort. It is scary enough to make the decision to write a novel. To face the prospect without a reliable guide? UNTHINKABLE!!

E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel had the potential to make some very important and interesting points about how we categorise and understand the novel. In fairness, it contains very simple and helpful definitions of plot and story. Forster tells us that the two are distinguished by causality. Unfortunately, the man is a total prick. The very personal, informal style of the guide reveals how hugely biased, defensive and uninformed Forster is. He believes only the intelligent with good memories...

Towards a Poetics of The Novel Here is a nice pseudo-scholarly jaunt through what 'aspects' go towards the creation of the Novel-form. Forster isolates a few of these aspects and discusses them, but the the 'rhythm' of the lectures, to use his own terminology, is one of insufficiency. It is as if Forster knows that the framework would collapse ever so easily with the slightest departure from his selected story-line or plot-structure or lecture-structure.As I said, there is much jauntiness her

I really hoped to get a lot more out of this book, but I spent most of my time thinking, ‘What are you talking about?’ It’s hard to find many lucid bits. For example, in the segment called Pattern and Rhythm:‘The longer [Henry] James worked, the more convinced he grew that a novel should be a whole not necessarily geometric like The Ambassadors, but it should accrete round a single topic, situation, gesture, which should occupy the characters and provide a plot, and should also fasten up the nov...

I didn't understand precisely what he meant by fantasy vs prophecy, and I have a feeling that it could be useful. But as a whole, it was a thoughtful take on writing, freed from historicizing or putting everyone on a timeline. Some really interesting thoughts about novels and their relationship to plot, especially.

I first read "Aspects of the Novel" shortly after I entered College at a time when my reading was predominately in science fiction. I found Forster’s book very exciting and it stimulated me to the point where I began reading more widely and finally became an English major.Well, time has passed since then and my views have moderated somewhat though I still think this is a book anyone interested in the novel should look through at last once.The first two chapters are quite engaging and help explai...

half of the time I was thinking "why are we talking about this?"

Like many exponents of "literary" fiction, Forster has no appreciation for the craft, difficulty, or art of story. Consider this ridiculous observation:"Curiosity is one of the lowest of the human faculties. You will have noticed in daily life that when people are inquisitive they nearly always have bad memories and are usually stupid at bottom. The man who beings by asking you how many brothers and sisters you have, is never a sympathetic character, and if you meet him in a year’s time he will

As much as I absolutely love some of Forster’s novels, there was something about this book which failed to reach me entirely. In about half of it, he was lucid and original, using text examples that I knew, and lifting their meanings to new heights; introducing his famous ‘flat’ and ‘round’ characters. But in the other half (or so), I felt that he was unnecessarily allegorical and metaphysical, and he lost me at times. The book is divided into chapters about The Story, People, The Plot, Fantasy,...

I liked the book. it is really helpful for those who are interested especially in literature. i liked the language . It's simple, in the same time, it has some sophisticated vocabulary.Well, E.M.Forster talks about the aspects of the novel. there are about 5 chapters; each chapter contains a certain aspect:1 story2 people (A&B)3 plot4 fantasy & prophecy 5 pattern & rhythm I'm about to demonstrate the general idea in each of them: STORY: the story is a narrative of events arranged in time sequenc...

"No English Novelist is as great as Tolstoy"...as if I couldn't love E.M. Forster even more!!!That fact that one of my favorite authors (Forster) has also read and loved the same books as I have just makes my heart sing! Going into this book, I thought it was going to be a type of "guide to writing fiction." Well, I can happily say that I was very wrong. I did know I would love this book because it's a written transcript of his Cambridge lectures. What I didn't expect was for it to feel like a l...

I enjoyed it to some extent, especially the laugh-out-loud moments where he points out how utterly ridiculous a plot is, or quotes a parody of Henry James by H G Wells. But many of the books of which he speaks are ones I have never even heard of and so I must confess that there were times when he lost me and I would rather have been elsewhere.

E M Forester is a remarkable man. Astute. And that's what makes Aspects of the Novel so compelling.The book is a compilation of lectures, delivered in Trinity College, Cambridge in 1927, on what he considers universal aspects of the novel: story, characters, plot, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm. The lectures are unique and insightful. Had I not lost my book immediately after finishing it I would have loved to quote several of his shrewd, profound and appealing conclusions here. What stil...

This was a fascinating breakdown on what Forster thought a novel should be/have. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and ended up highlighting large sections. There were things I didn't completely agree with but on the whole I liked what he had to say.

Not exactly a how-to guide or a critique, Forster very basically explains different aspects of the novel through a series of lectures he gave in the late 1920s. A lot of the books that he refers to I’ve never read and probably never will (Les Faux Monnayeurs, not so much interested in), but he usually includes enough detail of the story or character that you get his point.The tone is pretty casual, which makes it an easy read and while the aspects he covers are very basic - the story, the plot,

Today’s post will be a little different from my usual content because I’ll try my best to review E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel, a collection of lectures he held at Trinity College in 1927. This book comprises of the author’s note, an introduction, a chapter on the story, two on characters, one on plot, fantasy, prophecy, patterns and rhythm and a conclusion. In the Introduction, Forster defines the novel and its length, then, he compares famous English novels with masterpieces of French an...

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3.5/5 StarsI had to read this series of lectures by E.M. Forster for one of my classes and I found it quite interesting, especially in some parts. I also really appreciated how clear he was in his explanations and how every aspect was touched upon and not left unresolved. If you're interested in fiction in general and its main aspects, you might want to read this.

There is not much to be said about this book apart from the fact that it is a pillar in the field of literary criticism. One will surely learn many valuable things about the craft of fiction thanks to Forster's witty and straightforward style which, unfortunately, did not remain consistent near the end of the book.I had the impression that Forster's choice of certain works to illustrate his opinions was made out of personal taste and stance towards a few of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, what...

This is a rather dated study of the novel that Forster delivered in a series of lectures at the Cambridge Arts Theatre in 1927, but some elements are still of interest. Forster limits his study to about a dozen novels and their authors: The Brothers Karamazov, Moby Dick, Ulysses, Wuthering Heights, Madame Bovary, Moll Flanders, Emma, Tristram Shandy, The White Peacock, War and Peace, Bleak House and the Ambassadors. He breaks his areas of study into Story, Plot, People, Fantasy, Prophesy, Patter...