A novel is a thematic world controlled by the author. Sometimes a writer realises that his many thematic worlds fit into a greater idea universe, or he may aim from the start to build such a universe or system, populated by thematic worlds that can be conceptually linked together.

Historical accidents, too, can sometimes classify books into a system, as happened in the case of Walter Scott (1771–1832).

The first novel in what became the Waverley Novels, comprising 26 titles, came out in 1814. As Scott did not acknowledge his authorship publicly until 1827 — by which time he had published 22 titles — these historical novels of travel and adventure bore the line “by the author of Waverley” on their title pages, which gave these novels the Waverly name by accident.

While Scott did not claim to have any particular system in mind when he wrote these books, critics have noted in these works the influence of 18th century Enlightenment, and a preoccupation with the theme of social progress without sacrificing past traditions.

The Waverley Novels are also important, even as a non-system system, because the designer of the first proper novelistic universe, Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), acknowledged his debt to Scott when announcing the design of his own universe, La Comédie Humaine [The Human Comedy] — a collection of interlinked stories, novellas and novels comprising 91 finished works (and 46 unfinished ones) that focused on life in French society in the first half of the 19th century.

Balzac arrived at the grand idea of La Comédie Humaine in stages. He first made three large groups for his novels: “Etudes de Moeurs” [Studies of Manners] that would study the “effects” of society, including all genders, social classes, age-groups and professions; “Etudes Philosophiques” [Philosophical Studies] that would study the “causes” of these effects; and “Etudes Analytiques” [Analytical Studies] that would concern itself with the study of the “principles” behind these phenomena.

Balzac made a further classification in the characters that would populate these studies. In Studies of Manners the characters would be “individuals made into types”, while the characters in Philosophical Studies would be “types made into individuals.”

Ultimately, all these studies and their characters were subsumed in the greater La Comédie Humaine and, in 1842, Balzac set out to explain the work’s general structure and principles.

As a writer, he assumed the office of the secretary of human society, transcribing its history. He declared that he wished to understand the “social species” much like a biologist analyses “zoological species”, by describing the correlation between men, women and things.

However, he made a distinction by stating that, while a biologist may overlook the discrepancies between a male and female lion, “in human society, the woman is not merely the female of the man.”

While Balzac arrived at his novelistic system through an evolutionary method, Émile Zola (1840-1902), whom he influenced in his turn, planned his system in advance.

Zola’s own series of novels, which came to be known as Les Rougon-Macquart, had 20 titles. Zola distinguished his work from Balzac’s in Différences entre Balzac et moi [Differences Between Balzac and Me], published in 1869, with the following statement:

“In one word, [Balzac’s] work wants to be the mirror of contemporary society. My work, mine, will be something else entirely. The scope will be narrower. I don’t want to describe contemporary society, but a single family, showing how the race is modified by the environment... My big task is to be strictly naturalist, strictly physiologist.”

The Les Rougon-Macquart series documents the lives of fictional characters from two branches of a family in the late 19th century.

Together, the systems conceived by Balzac and Zola offer a full view of French society in the 19th century, as documented by two of its greatest minds.

The last such great cycle was the Voyages Extraordinaires [Extraordinary Voyages] series by Jules Verne (1828-1905). According to Verne’s editor, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, the goal of the Voyages was “to outline all the geographical, geological, physical, historical and astronomical knowledge amassed by modern science and to recount, in an entertaining and picturesque format... the history of the universe.”

Most of the books in the Voyages Extraordinaires series are adventure stories with elements of science fiction. In an interview, Verne confirmed that his publisher’s grand commission provided the literary theme of his cycle, but he provided the literary philosophy underpinning his works:

“My object has been to depict the earth, and not the earth alone, but the universe… And I have tried at the same time to realise a very high ideal of beauty of style. It is said that there can’t be any style in a novel of adventure, but it isn’t true; though I admit it is very much more difficult to write such a novel in a good literary form than the studies of character which are so vogue to-day.”

In the writer’s life the attempt to imagine and build such a system of fictional works gives meaning to her or his existence, but what, if anything, does it do for a reader?

A reader is under no compulsion to read every book of the Waverly Novels series, La Comédie Humaine, Les Rougon-Macquart series or Voyages Extraordinaire, and may happily go forth to discover other writers after reading a book or two each from these cycles.

And even if a reader does undertake to read all the works from one or more of these systems, it may not necessarily reveal more corners and reaches of a writer’s mind, for authors can repeat themselves and revisit the same themes.

But what these cycles of novels do is provide the compass of a writer’s greatest preoccupations and ambitions, and also his failures.

The columnist is a novelist, author and translator.
He tweets @microMAF.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, August 13th, 2023