Aspects

ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL--Edward Morgan Forster--Harcourt, Brace (82.50). Author of A Passage to India, and other less famed but meritorious novels, E. M. Forster gave a series of lectures at Cambridge. In these lectures, now published, he traces, weighs, values, explains in original fashion, the elements of the novel. These elements: "The Story," "The People," "The Plot," "Fantasy," "Prophecy," "Pattern and Rhythm," he exhibits in many examples. For "Story," he quotes and examines Walter Scott, for "Plot," Andre Gide. The result is a book devoted to the highest form of criticism, inquiry. To those who read novels as they watch magicians, longing for mystification, it will be merely a tedious expose of an art which is better left unexplained. But reading fiction is not like watching a magician; it is more engrossing when the difficulties of writing are apparent. To any writer, to many an intelligent fiction reader, Author Forster's penetrating analysis will be as engrossing as the fictions it surveys.