ARE YOU REAL?

ARE YOU A CHARACTER IN A NOVEL?

E.M. Forster was an English novelist, short story writer and novelist. He wrote several novels that have been made into movies. Perhaps you've seen A Room with a View, A Passage to India, and Howards End. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society.

In his book Aspects of the Novel, 1927, he wrote:

“And now we can get a definitions to when a character in a book is real: it is real when the novelist knows everything about it. He may not choose to tell us all he knows – many of the facts, even of the kind we call obvious, may be hidden. But he will give us the feeling that though the character has not been explained, it is explicable, and we get from this a reality of a kind we can never get in life."

And he goes on to say:

  "For human intercourse, as soon as we look at it for its own sake and not as a social adjunct, is seen to be haunted by a specter. We cannot understand each other, except in a rough and ready way; we cannot reveal ourselves, even when we want to; what we call intimacy is only a makeshift; perfect knowledge is an illusion. But in a novel we can know people perfectly, and, apart from the general pleasure of reading, we can find here a compensation for their dimness in life."

READ BOOKS. READ NOVELS. BUT PLEASE 

Don't be haunted by the specter of life. Life is meant to be lived. The only reality is actually right now. If you get caught up living in the past you may live life like the main character in the movie "Memento." Forge ahead. You can learn more by clicking on our logo: