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ficbot · 08-10-2009, 08:40 AM

If it's a British novel, I would say 'Victorian' is an apt description. My experience with literary categorization in university has been that there is great flexibility for non-British novels. For example, I was made to read Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro for FOUR different classes run by different branches of the literature department (first-year English, Women in Literature, Canadian Literature and Post-Colonial Literature). Now, obviously, every modern novel written by a Canadian is a 'Canadian novel' but is it also a 'Post-Colonial' novel? And what about novels written by Canadian citizens who were not born here, such as Rohinton Mistry, who won the Governor General's Award for his novel about a family in Bombay, India? Canadian novel or not?

Use whatever term helps you describe it and don't get caught up in semantics would be my advice

Does it matter, in the end?

08-10-2009, 08:40 AM	#2
ficbot Wizard Posts: 2,409 Karma: 4132096 Join Date: Sep 2008 Device: Kindle Paperwhite/iOS Kindle App	If it's a British novel, I would say 'Victorian' is an apt description. My experience with literary categorization in university has been that there is great flexibility for non-British novels. For example, I was made to read Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro for FOUR different classes run by different branches of the literature department (first-year English, Women in Literature, Canadian Literature and Post-Colonial Literature). Now, obviously, every modern novel written by a Canadian is a 'Canadian novel' but is it also a 'Post-Colonial' novel? And what about novels written by Canadian citizens who were not born here, such as Rohinton Mistry, who won the Governor General's Award for his novel about a family in Bombay, India? Canadian novel or not? Use whatever term helps you describe it and don't get caught up in semantics would be my advice Does it matter, in the end?