Now, I love novels
At the age of sixteen, I read my first novel, “Zainab”, and to be honest that wasn’t a good experience. “Zainab” is a famous Arabic novel about a romantic tragedy that takes place in the Egyptian countryside. Back at that time, I wasn’t really interested in novels, I only read “Zainab” as part of a class assignment, and “Zainab” only confirmed my presumption about novels. They are boring.
Three years later, I read my second novel, “The Stranger”, and since then I’ve never stopped reading novels. But how could that happen ? I thought I hated novels !
“The Stranger” is a famous French novel about a young man named “Meursault” who doesn’t conform to social norms. As you may guess, I also read this novel as part of a class assignment, only this one, marked a shifting point in my relationship with novels. After finishing it, I had two important realizations :
- Novels have different writing styles.
- If we hate a novel, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad.
Novels have different writing styles
As you can tell from the first sentence of this blog, I didn’t grow up reading novels. The only thing novel-like that I was exposed to during my childhood and adolescence were passages that we studied at school and, of course, “Zainab”. And do you know what they had in common ? The writing style.
Take a look at the following passage (I have to admit that this was generated by ChatGPT. My English level doesn’t allow me to write such a thing LOL) :
“She stood there contemplating the view. The city skyline was a patchwork of towering buildings, their facades glinting in the midday sun. Some were sleek and modern, with gleaming glass windows reflecting the sky, while others were older and more ornate, their intricate carvings and stonework telling the stories of generations past. The tallest of them all seemed to stretch up into the clouds, their spires and antennae reaching for the heavens. From this height, the city below appeared as a labyrinth of streets and alleys, winding between the massive edifices like threads in a tapestry.”
This example resembles a lot of the novel passages that I encountered at school : long, difficult and highly descriptive passages told by an external narrator. I would get really bored reading this kind of passage, especially if the only purpose it serves in the novel is describing something just for the sake of it.
Being mainly exposed to this style of writing made me believe that this is how all novels are written and how they should be written. Therefore, if I were to write a novel, I would have to describe how the sky is blue and how the birds’ singing sounds …etc. I’m not trying to criticize this writing style. My point here is : if this is how you write then I’m clearly not your target audience.
“The Stranger” opened my eyes to a new facet of the novel, one which I really liked. First of all, it was written in the first person which tied me closer to the protagonist. The goal of the novel was to explain a philosophical point of view which made me realize that not all novels aim to tell a beautiful love story. There are novels that explore other aspects of life. And lastly, the writing style was really simple and not heavily descriptive.
If we hate a novel, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad
Novels are like food. You might hate Indian food, but some people on this planet find it delightful.
I used to think “Zainab” was a bad novel simply because I didn’t like it. This way of reasoning is utterly wrong. In fact, it’s not impossible that if I were to reread “Zainab” today, I might change my opinion about it, because as we evolve as readers, we learn how to appreciate different genres and styles of writing.
To be clear, I’m not trying to make a case that there are no bad novels; of course there are. What I’m trying to say is that we shouldn’t mistake “not my cup of tea” novels for “bad” novels.
To conclude this blog, I want to say that today I’m twenty-six years old and I’ve lost track of how many novels I’ve read. Now, I love novels.
