What is a novel?I say:an invented story.At the same ti me a story which,though invented,has the power to ring t rue.True to what?True to life as the reader knows life to be or,it may be,feels life to be.And I mean the a dult,the grown-up reader.Such a reader has outgrown fairy tales,and we do not want the fantastic and the impossibl e.So I say to you that a novel must stand up to the ad ult tests of reality.
You may say:“If one wants truth,why not go the literall y true book?Biography or documentary,these amazing accounts of amazing experiences which people have.”Yes,but I am suggesting to you that there is a distinction between trut h and so-called reality.The novel does not simply recount experience.And here comes in the what is the actual liveni ng spark of the novel:the novelist’s imagination has a po wer of its own.It does not merely invent,it perceives.I t intensifies,therefore it gives power,extra importance,an d greater truth to what may well be ordinary and everyday things.。