Novel relationships

Every novel. every narrator can't help offering the promise of a relationship.

Jane Smiley, 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel

Relationships are important to all of us — friends, lovers, families, even store clerks and those working in medical offices whom we see periodically. But novels or the narrators of novels? Can we have meaningful relationships with them?

Jane Smiley

I like that Jane Smiley, in making the statement above, clarifies it with the phrase "offering the promise of a relationship." This promise is not fulfilled in every novel or in every narrator. Some novels we read and soon forget. Of course, that also may be true of some human relationships. First dates don't always lead to second dates. Even close friendships can evaporate quickly after one person moves away.

I think something very much like a relationship can develop while one is engrossed in a novel. The same is true of movies, of course. We become invested in the story. The words and actions of the characters matter to us. We want to give them advice: Don't open that door. Don't believe what he's saying. Kiss her, you fool.

Some fictional relationships can last longer than many real human relationships. Why do we keep some novels on our shelves long after we have finished reading them or why do we want to read some novels again and again?  It's because the relationship isn't over.