These early war novels were usually satires and picaresque novels.
Typical of a picaresque novel, there is a wide range of characters but few central ones.
It's all very whimsical, but that, of course, is what a picaresque novel can be.
The picaresque novel is an example of such a genre.
The picaresque novel, as literary genre, has the following characteristics:
It is a picaresque novel, and as such may seem uncharacteristically lighthearted given its subject matter.
Scott does, however, attempt to be comic, or at least to follow the conventions of the picaresque novel.
The picaresque novel and the soap opera are open-ended forms.
"The Tables" is not so much a political tract as the equivalent of a picaresque novel.
A literature of the homeless' surely has its roots in the picaresque novel: