Text 1: Critic Park argues that experimental novels — those breaking with conventional plot, character, or syntax — push fiction forward by trying what realism cannot. Without the radical formal experiments of Beckett, Robbe-Grillet, or W. G. Sebald, she contends, the novel as a form would have stagnated.
Text 2: Critic Singh accepts that experimental fiction has produced important work but worries about treating "formal innovation" as fiction's central project. Many of the great realist novels of the last half-century — by Mantel, Strout, Munro — develop the form by deepening characters and situations rather than disrupting them. Innovation is not only formal; some of it is patient and quiet.
Based on the texts, how would Singh (Text 2) most likely respond to Park's claim?
- Acheck_circle
She would accept their value while disputing that formal experimentation is the central engine of the novel's development.
- B
She would say all novels must be experimental.
- C
She would propose that the novel cannot develop further.
- D
She would deny that experimental novels have any value.
Explanation
Singh accepts experimental fiction's value but rejects centering it as the only mode of development. B captures her position.