An antinovel is a type of story that tries new things. It does not use the usual ways that novels are written. Instead, it creates new rules or methods for telling the story.

Origin of the term

The term "anti-roman" (which means "anti-novel" in English) was introduced into modern discussions about literature by the French philosopher and critic Jean-Paul Sartre. He used it in his introduction to Nathalie Sarraute's 1948 book Portrait d’un inconnu (Portrait of a Man Unknown). However, the term "anti-roman" had been used earlier by Charles Sorel in 1633 to describe the humorous or mocking style of his written story Le Berger extravagant.

Characteristics

The antinovel often breaks into pieces and changes the characters' experiences in strange ways. It shows events out of the order they happened and makes characters seem unclear or change a lot. Main features of antinovels include no clear story, characters that don't change much, events that happen out of order, unusual words and sentence structures, and starting and ending in different ways. Some extreme examples may have pages that can be removed or are empty, along with drawings and symbols.

History

The term "antinovel" is often linked to the French literary movement called "nouveau roman" from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. However, similar ideas appeared earlier in literature. One example is Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, a book that appears to be an autobiography but rarely reaches the point of describing the main character's birth. This happens because the story includes many side topics and avoids following a clear timeline. Aron Kibédi Varga argued that Tristram Shandy might have started as an antinovel, as early books like Don Quixote and later works such as Naked Lunch also challenged traditional novel forms while helping to define what a novel could be.

The term "antinovel" became widely used in the years after World War II. C. P. Snow described the antinovel as a type of writing that showed a lack of belief in clear rules for living, with characters acting in a slow, aimless way. More specifically, the antinovel is known for avoiding realistic storytelling and instead drawing attention to its own fictional nature. This style, which breaks away from traditional writing rules, eventually became a common feature in its own right.