Portal:Novels

The Novels Portal A novel is a long narrative, normally in prose, which describes fictional characters and events, usually in the form of a sequential story. The genre has also been described as possessing "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years". This view sees the novel's origins in Classical Greece and Rome, medieval, early modern romance, and the tradition of the novella. The latter, an Italian word used to describe short stories, supplied the present generic English term in the 18th century. Ian Watt, however, in The Rise of the Novel (1957) suggests that the novel first came into being in the early 18th century, Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, is frequently cited as the first significant European novelist of the modern era; the first part of Don Quixote was published in 1605. The romance is a closely related long prose narrative. Walter Scott defined it as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents", whereas in the novel "the events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events and the modern state of society." Scott's definition is not to be thought more than historical, however; for many romances, including Scott's own historical romance, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, are also frequently called novels, and Scott describes romance as a "kindred term". Romance, as defined here, should not be confused with the genre fiction love romance or romance novel. Other European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: "a novel is le roman, der Roman, il romanzo." More about novels... Selected article El Señor Presidente is a 1946 novel by Nobel Prize-winning Guatemalan writer Miguel Ángel Asturias. A landmark text in Latin American literature, El Señor Presidente explores the nature of political dictatorship and its effects on society. Asturias also makes early use of a literary technique that would come to be known as magic realism. One of the most notable works of the dictator novel genre, El Señor Presidente developed from an earlier Asturias short story, written to protest social injustice in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in the author's home town. Although El Señor Presidente does not explicitly identify its setting as early twentieth-century Guatemala, the novel's title character was inspired by the 1898–1920 presidency of Manuel Estrada Cabrera. Asturias began writing the novel in the 1920s and finished it in 1933, but the strict censorship policies of Guatemalan dictatorial governments delayed its publication for a further thirteen years. The character the President rarely appears in the story but Asturias creates a number of other characters to show the terrible effects of living under a dictatorship. The style of El Señor Presidente influenced a generation of Latin American authors. In 1967, Asturias received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his entire body of work. This international acknowledgment was celebrated throughout Latin America, where it was seen as a recognition of the region's literature as a whole. Since then, El Señor Presidente has been adapted for the screen three times. Selected novel quote Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color; and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows- a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues — every stately or lovely emblazoning — the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge — pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt? Moby-Dick WikiProjects Main projects WikiProjects Arts • Books • Literature • Novels • Entertainment • Visual arts Related Projects Animation • Anime and manga • Biography • Comics • Film • Fictional characters • Media franchises • Music • Television • Video games What are WikiProjects? Announcements and open tasks WikiProject Novels • (inc. novellas, novelettes & short stories) Announcements and open tasks (watch • edit • discuss • changes) → Please help with tagging articles! Critique (Featured article): 33 achieved Novels WikiProject Peer reviews: • Sector General • Petals of Blood • Flowers for Algernon Improve: Oberon Old and New • The Age of Reason • Furies of Calderon • Wolf Brother • The Monk • The English Patient • Bones of the Moon Create: To the Vanishing Point • Spoilt City Recently a new worklist had been created and quietly arrived, the Cleanup listing which gives a fairly comprehensive hit list of "novels" related articles that have been tagged for something or other. Since then a new Article alerts listing has also been added of more topic and "urgent" items worthy of our attention. Did you know... ...that Alistair Beaton predicted the flooding of New Orleans in his 2004 satirical novel A Planet for the President? ...that Burning Bright by John Steinbeck (pictured) was an attempt at a new form of literature, the "play-novelette"— but both the play and novel were savaged by the critics and Steinbeck never wrote for the theatre again? ...that The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five, a science fiction novel by Doris Lessing, was adapted for the opera in 1997 by Philip Glass? 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