ABSTRACT
The title o f this essay begs definition and poses questions. There is no such thing as ‘the novel today’; there are only novels. Several hundred works o f fiction o f some literary merit are published every year. They are tangible objects which may be read. ‘The novel5, on the other hand, cannot be read; it is an idea, an abstraction. As such, it is not even the Platonic idea o f which individual novels are shadowy representations. Indeed the reverse is more nearly true. It is ‘the novel’ which represents a concept formed as a result o f reading a great many quite distinct novels. All talk o f ‘the novel’ is inevitably generalization, made more impressive, but perhaps less significant, the further it is removed from consideration o f particular works o f fiction.
