Stendhal said that the novel was 'a mirror that one walks down a road', 'un miroir qu'on promène le long d'un chemin'. Although this maxim is generally agreed to be a masterful summary of the realist project in fiction, it has always brought out a literal streak in me. How much would the mirror show? Wouldn't everything depend on how big it was? Who would be looking into it? They wouldn't have much of a view, would they? Is the novelist the person who's carrying the mirror, or is she standing by the side of the road looking at the mirror, in which case isn't that a bit passive, given that it's presumably meant to be her novel? Would the mirror change angle, so you could see more of what was going on?

LRB 9 April 2009 | PDF Download