The characters? Their psychology? Their evolution?
The aesthetics?
The social commentary?
The prose?
The plot?
The detail of the setting, or lack thereof?
The complete lack of legibility?
>>9293443
The contribution to our subconscious mythological understanding of how to engage with the world and resolve the problems it presents to us.
>>9293452
That's not really an "element" of a novel so much as the product as a whole, but ok
It's a trick. You cannot overemphasise any element of a novel without creating pure propaganda; you must seek balance in all things in order to achieve the perfect novel.
>>9293460
No, it's an element that emerges from the whole. It is separate and distinct from the whole.
>>9293443
Whatever you want it to be.