 "The Lives of the Novel" narrates the history of the novel from its Ancient Greek origins to the present, based on the assumption that older as well as more recent narratives are all about human beings, their values, their passions, and their actions, thus being comprehensible across the borders of time and cultures.Pavel points out that the genre has always involved a strong debate between the idealization of human action and the critique of its imperfection.21st-century readers do not live in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, or the 18th-century, yet, because of this debate, the sublime story of Tristan, the comic one of Don Quixote, and the problematic one of Moll Flanders are still immediately accessible to them.