The novel is modern – early eighteenth century. Daniel Defoe’s “The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe” (1719). Or maybe late seventeenth century – Aphra Behn’s “Oronoco” (1688). Though Don Quixote is from the early seventeenth century – 1605. But in English anyway, the novel only really kicks off in the eighteenth century – where there must be a plausible (non-fantastical), naturalistic, realistic story left to run its course. Like William Godwin’s ‘Caleb Williams’: yes this kind of thing, though unlikely, could really happen, and does happen, to the put upon, the weak, the poor in our society. So, what are we going to do about it?
The novel asks questions about the real world. The reader needs to come up with answers. This is not escapism. This is the opposite. This is reality – if rose-tinted, romanticised, sentimental and melodramatic.
So, there are rules: a machine is set up, and it is allowed to unwind – under its own internal logic –under the rules of a game the novel itself has set up at the outset. What we don’t get is an outside actor – a long lost brother turning up at the end, a butler hidden behind the walls for the whole of the novel, or any kind of supernatural intervention in the latter stages of the plot. If there must be God or Ghosts, then we should know this from the start – and the only way to deploy a ghost (or God) is in such a way as they might not really have intervened at all – it should be left unclear if the ghostly (or godly) thing did in fact happen – i.e. the outcome could have happened without this intervention. We have left behind the fantastical element of literature for the novel.
The key thing – what should be the motto of the novel in general – is that ‘it could really have happened just like this’. Sure, there might be some kind of magical, spiritual, miraculous solution, but it should never be necessary – the pot should hold water without a faun or a holy spirit’s intercession.
Which is why the term ‘deus ex machina’ or ‘god from the machine’ is such an important term when considering what the novel is, or rather, what it is not. This plot device describes when a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence.
If there’s a need to resolve an otherwise irresolvable plot situation, and to utterly surprise the reader, to bring the tale to a happy ending or any ending at all – any kind of resolution – then the novel has gone awry, the writer has failed: she is not writing novels anymore, she’s doing something else. What’s ,more, if the ahtir still contends that she is really writing novels, and pulls this kind of crap, then really – the reader has every right to feel betrayed. And betrayed, is not too strong a term.
We sit down to watch a film and don’t expect a government propaganda reel; when we sit down to read a novel, to read how a plausible (non-fantastical), naturalistic, realistic story runs its course, where real people do real things, and real stuff happens in real ways, and real motivations and causes lead to real outcomes and events – well – don’t pull the rug from underneath us.
The problem with Moresco’s novel: when the novel does God, the novel falters, and more often fails; if Aristotle wasn’t a fan of the intercession of God in narrative, decrying each and every deus ex machina, he was on to something. It’s like a sprinter taking drugs, a gambler using loaded dice, or your fencing opponent throwing sand in your eyes – you feel betrayed.
However, Moresco’s novel is intriguing, and so engaging: he takes you all the way with him, only betraying you in the dying days, though the reader can sense something is up early doors: yes, this writer is going to break the rules of the game, and then he does.
A Useful Fiction 