Tiny Elementary School Chairs and the Novel

"However appalling to consider, however tedious to exact, every novel requires FURNITURE, whether it be named or unnamed, for the characters will be unable to remain in standing positions for the duration of the story. . . . These rules apply no matter how tangential the novel’s commitment to social realism, no matter how avant garde or capricious, no matter how revolutionary or bourgeois."

Jonathan Lethem, from a set of short essays based on “Key Words” the Villa Gillet elicited from participants in a forthcoming International Forum on the Novel, published in BookForum.

I would love this observation no matter when or where I read it.  But I especially appreciated it in the context of the surrounding mini-essays which went on about the abyss from which novels are dredged. Such seemingly glib despair sounded pompous to my mind, which is, admittedly, little more than an outpost of ESPN.

I also loved this observation because I recently spent a morning in an elementary school, which highlights anyone’s awareness of furniture. (See my King Kongish knee, towering above a  itty-bitty table.)

And I loved Lethem’s observation because I had been almost writing a scene in a novel for several days and I was prompted to write the scene. The question, “where does he sit?” focused the entire scene for me.    

Comments

[Mandy]

I've been reading Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks. And, oh boy...the furniture!
Nice knee!