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An antinovel is any
experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...
work of
fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...
that avoids the familiar conventions of the
novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...
, and instead establishes its own conventions.


Origin of the term

The term ("anti-roman" in French) was brought into modern literary discourse by the French philosopher and critic
Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th ...
in his introduction to
Nathalie Sarraute Nathalie Sarraute (; born Natalia Ilinichna Tcherniak (); – 19 October 1999) was a French writer and lawyer. She was nominated in 1969 for the Nobel Prize in Literature by Nobel Committee member Lars Gyllensten. Personal life Sarraute wa ...
's 1948 work ''Portrait d’un inconnu'' (Portrait of a Man Unknown)."New Novel." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 31 Aug. 2012. However the term "anti-roman" (anti-novel) had been used by Charles Sorel in 1633 to describe the parodic nature of his prose fiction ''Le Berger extravagant''.


Characteristics

The antinovel usually fragments and distorts the experience of its characters, presenting events outside of chronological order and attempting to disrupt the idea of characters with unified and stable personalities. Some principal features of antinovels include lack of obvious plot, minimal development of character, variations in time sequence, experiments with vocabulary and syntax, and alternative endings and beginnings. Extreme features may include detachable or blank pages, drawings, and hieroglyphs.


History

Although the term is most commonly applied to the French ''
nouveau roman The Nouveau Roman (, "new novel") is a type of French novel in the 1950s and 60s that diverged from traditional literary genres. Émile Henriot coined the term in an article in the popular French newspaper ''Le Monde'' on May 22, 1957 to describ ...
'' of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, similar traits can be found much further back in literary history. One example is
Laurence Sterne Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric. He is best known for his comic novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' (1759–1767) and ''A Sentimental Journey Thro ...
's ''
Tristram Shandy Tristram may refer to: Literature * the title character of ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'', a novel by Laurence Sterne * the title character of '' Tristram of Lyonesse'', an epic poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne *"Tristr ...
'', a seemingly autobiographical novel that barely makes it as far as the title character's birth thanks to numerous digressions and a rejection of linear chronology. Aron Kibédi Varga has suggested that the novel in fact began as an antinovel, since the first novels such as ''
Don Quixote , the full title being ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'', is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, the novel is considered a founding work of Western literature and is of ...
'' subverted their form even as they were constructing the form of the novel.Dionne U, Gingras F. L'USURE ORIGINELLE DU ROMAN: ROMAN ET ANTIROMAN DU MOYEN AGE A LA REVOLUTION. (French). Études Françaises. April 2006;42(1):5-12. Accessed August 31, 2012. It was however in the postwar decades that the term first came into critical and general prominence.A. Gibson, ''Postmodernity, Ethics and the Novel'' (2002) p. 92 To C. P. Snow, the antinovel appeared as "an expression of that nihilism that fills the vacuum created by the withdrawal of positive directives for living", and as an ignoble scene in which "the characters buzz about sluggishly like winter flies". More technically however, its distinctive feature was the anti-mimetic and self-reflective drawing of attention to its own fictionality, a parodic anti-realistic element. Paradoxically, such anti-conventionalism would eventually come to form a distinctive convention of its own.J. Childers ed., ''The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism'' (1995) p. 57


See also

* ''
Nouveau roman The Nouveau Roman (, "new novel") is a type of French novel in the 1950s and 60s that diverged from traditional literary genres. Émile Henriot coined the term in an article in the popular French newspaper ''Le Monde'' on May 22, 1957 to describ ...
'' *
Anti-fairy tale An anti-fairy tale, also called anti-tale, is a fairy tale which, unlike an ordinary one, has a tragic, rather than a happy ending, with the antagonists winning and the protagonists losing at the end of the story. Whereas fairy tales paint a magi ...


References

{{Reflist Novel forms