A novel is “a long story bound enticingly between the closed covers of a book.” That, it turns out, is about as comprehensive a description of “the novel” as one is likely to get. At her best, Smiley humbly acknowledges the irreducibility of “the novel”. Unfortunately, the first half of 13 Ways does not always display Smiley at her best. Instead, through chapters exploring such matters as what a novel is, who is a novelist, morality and the novel, the art of the novel, and more, Smiley evinces a seeming compulsion to render. Thus the preponderance of universal claims beginning, “All novels…,” or, “Every novel…,” and so forth. None is convincing. At times they seem naïve, wilful, petulant. They culminate in a dubiously singular analytical theory that Smiley dubs “the circle of the novel”.
My advice is to set aside the first half of 13 Ways and start in around page 270. The following 300 pages consists in brief summaries and observations of two to three pages in length on each of 100 novels, a representative sampling from the history of novel writing (as opposed to a ‘best of’ selection). In these pages Jane Smiley earns our trust. Each novel is considered on its merits, unfiltered by cod theories. We see a sensitive and sensible reader, responsive to the texts, challenging but also willing to be challenged. Perhaps not surprisingly there is a complete absence of ponderous pronouncements on “the novel”. One gets the impression that in her heart Smiley knows that each novel of merit stands on its own creating its own universals from its own particularities. Thus Smiley notes that “really, in the end, all the reader can say is, ‘Read this. I bet you’ll like it.’”
And in the end, I did like 13 Ways, despite my increasing annoyance as I plodded through the first 270 pages. I’m so glad I continued on to read the whole of the remarks on her set of 100 novels (I only wish now that Smiley had been able to fulfil her original goal of a set of 275). On novels that I already knew well, I found Smiley’s observations invariably insightful. On novels that I knew of but have not yet read, I found new reasons to pick them up. And for those novels that were entirely new to me, I can only say that my potential reading world is now somewhat enlarged. You may, like me, finish by wishing that Jane Smiley (or some other sensitive and sensible reader) could provide comparable insights for every book you hope to read, or have already read and might now read again.