NCERT Book Class 11 English (Woven Words) Essay 5 What is a Good Book?

182 Woven Words

6 The Story
E.M. Forster

F Look for these expressions and guess their meaning from the context

atavistic shock-heads ingenious

We shall all agree that the fundamental aspect of the novel
is its story-telling aspect, but we shall voice our assent in
different tones, and it is on the precise tone of voice we
employ now that our subsequent conclusions will depend.
Let us listen to three voices. If you ask one type of
man, ‘What does a novel do?’ he will reply placidly, ‘Well—
I don’t know—it seems a funny sort of question to ask—a
novel’s a novel—well, I don’t know—I suppose it kind of
tells a story, so to speak’. He is quite good tempered and
vague, and probably driving a motor-bus at the same time
and paying no more attention to literature than it merits.
Another man, whom I visualise as on a golf-course, will be
aggressive and brisk. He will reply, ‘What does a novel do?
Why, tell a story of course and I’ve no use for it if it didn’t.
I like a story. Very bad taste, on my part, no doubt, but I
like a story. You can take your art, you can take your
literature, you can take your music, but give me a good
story. And I like a story to be a story, mind, and my wife’s
the same.’ And a third man, he says in a sort of drooping
regretful voice, ‘Yes—oh dear yes—the novel tells a story.’ I
respect and admire the first speaker. I detest and fear the
second. And the third is myself. Yes—oh dear yes—the novel
tells a story. That is the fundamental aspect without which
it could not exist. That is the highest factor common to all
novels, and I wish that it was not so, that it could be
something different—melody, or perception of truth, not
this low atavistic form.