A character is not a simulation of a living being. It is an imaginary being. An experimental self. In that way the novel reconnects with its beginnings.

A novel examines not reality but existence. And existence is not what has occurred, existence is the realm of human possibilities, everything that man can become, everything he’s capable of. Novelists draw up the map of existence by discovering this or that human possibility. But again, to exist means: “being-in-the-world.” Thus both the character and his world must be understood as possibilities. In Kafka, all that is clear: the Kafkan world does not resemble any known reality, it is an extreme and unrealized possibility of the human world.

M.K.: First, one thing is certain: the moment it becomes part of a novel, reflection changes its essence. Outside the novel, we’re in the realm of affirmation: everyone is sure of his statements: the politician, the philosopher, the concierge, within the universe of the novel, however, no one affirms: it is the realm of play and of hypotheses. In the novel, then, reflection is essentially inquiring, hypothetical.

A novel is often, it seems to me, nothing but a long quest for some elusive definitions.

NOVEL. The great prose form in which an author thoroughly explores, by means of experimental selves (characters), some themes of existence.