We shall all agree that the fundamental aspect of the novel is itsstory- telling aspect, but we shall voice our assent in different tones,and it is on the precise tone of voice we employ now that oursubsequent conclusions will depend.Let us listen to three voices. If you ask one type of man, “Whatdoes a novel do?” he will reply placidly: “Well－I don’t know－it seemsa funny sort of question to ask－a novel’s a novel－well, I don’t know－I suppose it kind of tells a story, so to speak. “ He is quitegood-tempered and vague, and probably driving a motor-bus at thesame time and paying no more attention to literature than it merits.Another man, whom I visualize as on a golf-course, will be aggressiveand brisk. He will reply: “What does a novel do? Why, tell a story ofcourse, and I’ve no use for it if it didn’t. I like a story. Very bad tasteon my part, no doubt, but I like a story. You can take your art, youcan take your literature, you can take your music, but give me a goodstory. And I like a story to be a story, mind, and my wife’s the same. “And a third man, he says in a sort of drooping regretful voice: “Yes－oh dear yes－the novel tells a story. “ I respect and admire the firstspeaker. I detest and fear the second. And the third is myself. Yes－oh dear yes－the novel tells a story. That is the fundamental aspectwithout which it could not exist. That is the highest factor common toall novels, and I wish that it was not so, that it could be somethingdifferent－melody, or perception of the truth, not this low atavisticform.For, the more we look at the story (the story that is a story, mind),the more we disentangle it from the finer growths that it supports,the less shall we find to admire. It runs like a backbone－or may I saya tapeworm, for its beginning and end are arbitrary. It is immenselyold－goes back to neolithic times, perhaps to paleolithic. Neanderthalman listened to stories, if one may judge by the shape of his skull.The primitive audience was an audience of shock-heads, gapinground the campfire, fatigued with contending against the mammothor the woolly rhinoceros, and only kept awake by suspense. Whatwould happen next? The novelist droned on, and as soon as theaudience guessed what happened next they either fell asleep or killedhim. We can estimate the dangers incurred when we think of thecareer of Scheherazade in somewhat later times.