Something form language courses i lack...

[KrazyKat]

I'd be interested in hearing more about those novels. All the novels (and nonfiction) I have read have consistently used である。

I had a quick look through some of the novels I've got here. I didn't count anything in speech marks.
幽霊博物館 by 赤川次郎 seems to use both, although I think である was more common.
I couldn't see any である at all in 体は全部知っている by 吉本ばなな
だ seemed more common in イン・ザ・プール by 奥田英郎 but である was used too.
I couldn't really judge which was more common in 風の海、迷宮の岸 from 小野不美子'ｓ 十二国記

Here's one example from 幽霊博物館
私とカメラの間に、誰かがフラフラと出て来たのだ。

 

[Mike Cash]

Could you clarify what you mean by "consistently?"

I think it is adequately qualified by the nine words preceding "consistently".

Here are the first two sentences of 世界の中心から愛をさけぶ:
朝、目がさめると泣いていた。いつものことだ。
And turning to a random page in リング the first copula I came across was だ (not in quoted speech).
In my admittedly limited reading experience, I've gotten the impression that だ is the norm, but that である crops up from time to time for variety or to make particularly complicated sentences clearer.

I don't doubt that it is used. That's why I asked for some examples of what sort of novels/writers used it, thinking that perhaps the information might help in spotting some sort of commonality (genre/author/period/etc).

 

[Elizabeth]

I don't doubt that it is used. That's why I asked for some examples of what sort of novels/writers used it, thinking that perhaps the information might help in spotting some sort of commonality (genre/author/period/etc).

The only example I have within reach is 治太宰の斜陽、a literary novel published in 1947 and just at a quick glance counted an equal number of each, da and de aru.

 

[JimmySeal]

I think it is adequately qualified by the nine words preceding "consistently".

Well I would think so too, but the implication that you have never read a book that used だ outside of a quotation nearly knocked me out of my chair. That is what you meant by "consistently," right?

Flipping to pages at random,
リング, 鈴木光司
現に、小栗は椅子に座ったまま、動こうともしない。いや、動けなかったのだ。

ローマは一日にして成らず、塩野七生
ペルシアは、繁栄するこの一帯をわがものにしようと欲したのだ。

'course it's easier to find examples of だった (as opposed to であった) than だ because most fictional exposition tends to be in past tense.

 

[Elizabeth]

Well I would think so too, but the implication that you have never read a book that used だ outside of a quotation nearly knocked me out of my chair. That is what you meant by "consistently," right?

It was merely a response to the earlier post that "da" in novels tended to be used instead of de aru. Consistently I would take as regularly, in each instance, that had not been his experience.

 

[kohlrak]

I don't understand why you want to argue about what you hardly know or understand yet.

I'm not starting another argument, i was just stating that from what i have read, it is no longer in common use.