/lit/ - Literature

How do you get through longer books? I have Les Miserables, Le Morte d'Arthur, and Don Quixote before me to read, and I'm a little daunted by the size of my undertaking. The second one might actually be a lot shorter because of the print size, but I find myself slowing down a little to absorb the writing.

Hey /lit/
I got a somehow serious question : what is a novel?
Can we even say it is narrated fiction? Is a novel a novel because it is neither theater nore poetry neither transcription of real events?

I mean I read some novels from the french "nouveau roman" of thesecond part of the 20th century like Sarraute or Robbe-Grillet.
And it seems so hard to escape the basis :
one character in a primal state / events and transformation / character in a new state