It depends on the novels. Though I'm Japanese, there are many kanji that I don't know if I read the novels with very difficult words. Generally, it's said that you can read the Japanese news papers if you know about 2000 kanji. However, here in Japan, there are novels for children, with easy words or kanji with "furigana". Please remember that we, the Japanese people learn kanji little by little from we are small. I hope this was helpful.