Curious:

[framlingem]

Why do some people title their books "Such-and-Such: A Novel"?

Seriously. If you have to tell me it's a novel, and I won't be able to figure out on my own that it is a fairly lengthy work of fiction, odds are it's either not very good, written for people who don't understand what a novel is, or really, really pretentious. In all cases, I admit that the 'A Novel' part is useful, as it warns me off. (I did actually buy a 'A Novel' book the other day, out of sheer curiosity and because I was desperate and it was a hardcover going for three bucks. It fell into the 'really, really pretentious' category. I plan to take it to the second-hand store and seeing if I can trade it in for some credit towards a beat-up paperback copy of a book that knows it's a novel without having to check its nametag.)

Is it so people can call themselves 'novelists' rather than 'authors'? Is it so I don't start reading it and write angry letters about how I was sucked into reading a five-pound book, thinking it was going to be a short story and would only take me ten minutes, and now I'm suing for the time I lost? Whoops! I mean, anyone could make that mistake, if not warned appropriately. If it's 'A Novel OF' something, that's at least useful. 'A Novel of Discworld', for instance - it lets me know it's a Discworld book, but probably won't deal too much with Ankh-Morpork or any of the main Disc characters.

*Has visions of boxes with 'Cheerios: A Cereal' written on them.*

I may have to put this up on my Life's Greatest Questions list, along with 'who on Earth thought 'Trojan' was a good name for a brand of condoms?' and 'why do my ten identical pairs of socks invariably become twenty odd socks in a matter of weeks?'

Comments

[aras-55555.livejournal.com]

I've wondered this myself. I suppose it comes from titles that might be misunderstood as something else, like 'The History of the World: A Novel' or 'Birds of North America: A Novel', and then it moved on to more ambiguous titles? It helps warn away people who aren't looking for fiction, but these days I think it's really mostly a stylistic affectation than anything else.

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

Generally, when I'm not looking for fiction, I stay away from the sections with big 'FICTION' signs all over them ;)