In this brief but highly engaging book Joseph Epstein argues for the
primacy of fiction, and specifically of the novel, among all
intellectual endeavors that seek to describe the behavior of human
beings. Reading superior fiction, he holds, arouses the mind in a way
that nothing else quite does. He shows how the novel at its best
operates above the level of ideas in favor of taking up the truths of
the heart. No other form probes so deeply into that eternal mystery of
mysteries, human nature, than does the novel.
Along the way, Epstein recounts how we read fiction differently than
much else we read. He sets out how memory works differently in the
reading of fiction than in that of other works. He notes that certain
novels are best read at certain ages, and suggests that novels, like
movies, might do well to carry ratings, with some novels best read no
later than one's early twenties, others not to be read before the age of
forty.
The knowledge one acquires from reading novels differs from all other
kinds of knowledge, for the subject of all superior fiction is human
existence itself, in all its variousness and often humbling confusion.
The spirit of the novel entails questioning much that others consider
home truths. This is demonstrated by the fact that so many important
philosophers, social scientists, jurists, and other intellectuals have
been devoted readers of fiction, among them Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.,
Michael Oakeshott, Edward Shils, and Clifford Geertz.
The Novel, Who Needs It? takes up those current elements in the
culture that militate against the production of first-rate fiction.
Prominent among them are the rise of online reading, the expansion of
creative writing programs, the artistically discouraging effects of
political correctness, and the pervasiveness of therapeutic thinking
throughout contemporary culture.
As for the title, The Novel, Who Needs It?, Joseph Epstein's answer is
that we all do.
