Reviews for The One vs. the Many: Minor Characters and the Space of the Protagonist in the Novel

The average rating for The One vs. the Many: Minor Characters and the Space of the Protagonist in the Novel based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-11-13 00:00:00 Michael Evans Characters fight for 'space' in a novel the way that people compete for recognition in real life, and main characters only attain their roles by virtue of their privileged situation in regard to minor characters. Such is the argument of this book, which was recommended to me with the warning that if I liked it I might become part of a devoted group of thirty to forty year olds who champion it intently as one of the most interesting things happening as regards literary interpretations. I am at this point thirty one, and I happily suggest that you cannot do many better things for your own reading habits than slowly read through this book. At times, while reading the introduction, I had the almost physical sensation of my brain opening up at the top to allow for new tools. If you are interested in Dickens or Austen (or, I suppose, Balzac), you should waste exactly no time in hunting this down. Read it. Love it. Join the team. (I hope one day to meet other members of the team.)

Review # 2 was written on 2012-08-09 00:00:00 William Garvin Woloch argues that we need to pay attention to the ways that narratives shape character spaces as a way of distributing narrative attention--minor characters are the proletariat of the novel. Considering I agree 99% with this author, I'm still going to quibble that Woloch takes the interiority thesis a bit too seriously. Aren't we all flat characters to some extent?