What is strange is that this prejudice against novel reading has persisted, to some extent, even in the modern world including India which has borrowed the novel form from the West. Students, particularly, are not encouraged to read novels. Parents and teachers seem to think that youngsters read fiction mainly to kill time, are likely to get addicted to it as to a drug, and derive from it a pleasure which makes them reluctant to apply themselves to serious study.
It must be admitted that this prejudice is justified, as far as bad novels are concerned. Today the railway book stalls and circulating libraries are flooded with detective novels, crime fiction and thrillers. The appeal of the majority of such novels is based on plot, usually absurd and improbable, and the excitement of the lower human instincts. They are totally devoid of characterization, insight into human nature, and significance. Reading such novels is not only a waste of time but exposing oneself to dangerous influences. Of course, there are some good detective novels such as those by Canon Doyle and there can be no objection to reading some of them, but it should be realised that the value of even good detective novels is that of entertainment, and that they do not contribute to understanding of life.
But what objection can there be to reading good novels? The novel today is an important form of literature, and several distinguished writers like Tolstoy, Wells, E. M. Forster, William Golding and Lawrence have chosen this form to express their vision of life. The fact that their novels give pleasure need not make them suspect in the eyes of educationists. The primary purpose of a novel is to please and delight the reader. But the masterpieces of fiction, apart from giving pleasure or in the process of giving pleasure, enlarge one’s sympathies and increase one’s understanding of life. They have not only interesting stories which grip our attention but life-like characters and significant themes. E. M Forster’s “A Passage to India”, for example, is an artistic, sympathetic study of the relations between Indians and the English in the days of the Raj. Dostoevsky’s, “Crime and Punishment”, finely traces the conflict in the mind of an essentially honest man who was forced to commit a murder. Such novels, besides, are written in a good style.
Reading good novels is a part of education. It enables us to understand the people around us, live a richer life, and increase our command over language. And, what is important, it confers these benefits in a pleasant, unobtrusive manner.
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Outline
The prejudice against novel reading – the prejudice justified in the case of bad novels – the advantages of reading good novels – conclusion. In the 18th and 19th centuries there was a prejudice against novel-reading in Europe. It was supposed to be a waste of time. Ruskin, a major English writer of the 19th century, included novels among the books of the hour as distinguished from books for all time which he fervently recommended to young readers.