How Fiction Works: (Tenth Anniversary Edition) Updated and Expanded

While for the most part this book shows a deft hand at introducing the craft of fiction—particularly what realism ushered in and made possible and even seem plausible—the feel of authorial agency rather than one dictated through narrative voice or language itself is highly annoying for one who understands subjectivity well. Also, the author treats technology as a piece of machinery rather than as techne which is critical to the novel itself. Possibly the most irritating section of the book was metaphor. While I highly enjoyed the reading of Roth’s paragraph, the rest of the metaphor section was like he was replaying the Flaubert’s desire to write nothing as to analyze nothing. Until nothing becomes an entry way to blow away how nothingness has sexualized women’s private areas that too much masculinity has to blow away. Thanks to Roth and Woods’ reading for that at least.

This is erudite but not really useful as an aid to a new writer,

...sorry about that title, though having typed it, it causes me to think that James Wood would never come up with such word-play and good, I suppose, for him.He does take Barthes to serious task in quoting Barthes' 1966 observation that narrative represents nothing and that a novel is, in terms of narrative, "language alone, the adventure of language, the unceasing celebration of its coming." Even if Barthes is wrong, he almost proves his point in writing so beautifully about language itself.Here's Wood himself, almost as good: "I think that novels tend to fail not when the characters are not vivid or deep enough, but when the novel in question has failed to teach us how to adapt to its conventions, has failed to manage a specific hunger for its own characters, its own reality level." I'm not sure that "reality level" would be less clumsy if it were just "world," by maybe Wood is trying to caress, or castigate, some part of David Shields here.Wood is well read and reads well. He's helped enormously by having a fine ear and eye for the fine analysis by others, from Virginia Woolf to Brigid Lowe (on the very notion of whether fiction is responsible for providing some kind of proof about the world).His own writing is never less than competent; even if he doesn't know where to put "only," as a modifier, as in "it only needs to ask the right questions," or hears a "hiss" in this (well, there is a hiss in "this" but not in this, which is what he quotes: ""What, quite unmanned in folly?").He also quotes the same George Eliot words twice. Nice words, but mostly a reminder that this book was no doubt put together from separate essays and neither Wood nor his editors read the book itself carefully enough to avoid such repetition (of this: "Art is the nearest thing to life; it is a mode of amplifying experience and extending our contact with our fellow-men beyond the bounds of our personal lot.")."How Fiction Works" doesn't "read like a novel." It's not supposed to. But it's more involving than most fiction, which may not be saying much, but it's saying something. Something that would be depressing if this book weren't so celebratory, in its way, of what is often good in our fiction and why fiction is important (the novel being "the highest example of subtle interrelatedness that man has discovered," D. H. Lawrence, not quoted by Wood).

The retro cover says it all. Farrar, Straus knew that it had the next big thing and that the next big thing consisted of a return to the best of the past. The book is receiving a great deal of attention, confirming their prescience.How Fiction Works is a study of something that is very old-fashioned these days: craft. It is an examination of key elements of fiction and how they are most fully utilized by skilled writers. The vast majority of the writers examined here are canonical ones--another old-fashioned touch. The book is also cognizant of the nuances of narrative history and (a more modern touch) draws on popular culture for key insights. In short, this is a delightful, perceptive "book" book. First and foremost, it is an exceptional read. It is opinionated (though not abusive or flippant) and is a nice example of something that many modern students may never have seen before--judicial criticism. Frye famously argued that judicial criticism is passé, now that we realize that literary "quality" is like the stock market. Particular authors' "stock" rises and falls, depending on generational interests, so we should not concern ourselves with evaluative judgments. That is all very nice, except for the fact that reviewers, referees, acquisition editors and agents are forced to make evaluative judgments and in a world in which 800,000 books are published annually, readers seek help and advice from putative experts.The book takes part of its inspiration from E. M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel, an interesting little book that has enjoyed some influence. How Fiction Works goes well beyond Forster (sometimes on issues which Forster is associated with specifically, e.g., the distinction between `flat' and `round' characters). This is a book for both critics and practitioners. It wears its erudition lightly, in the English mode, but its thoughts are often weighty and its insights acute (e.g. the notion that the French are suspicious of realism because of the function of the preterite in their language).The book is a must read for teachers and students of narrative, both for the importance of its arguments and for its function as an exemplar of what once functioned as "criticism" and might so function once again.

Quite interesting

Concise and masterfully distilled take on novel as an art form. Never pretentious, down to concrete examples anyone can enjoy with a multitude of “yes!” and “aha!” it walks through (one narrative of) the history of the novel in a way that leaves something to find for anyone.This is not a tome to be studied for ages, rather like Kurt Cobain or the Sex Pistols would throw irresistible short riffs on aspects of a good novel, which then linger as literary hooks, getting you downloading literary classics to your already overgrown pile of reading, which you will now read with opened eyes.Damn this was good.

Overall this is a pretty good introduction to literary criticism and some of the theories behind the analysis of fiction. It's pretty easy to read but I found myself having to look past many of the examples the author gives to illustrate the concept because I felt they were either poor choices or simply incorrect.A couple of examples: in discussing the difficulties authors can face in balancing authorial voice versus character voice he criticises John Updike in his novel Terrorist, for having an 18-year-old Muslim schoolboy specifically cite one of the sura’s in the Qu’ran, when he is ruminating on the state of the world. Wood claims this is unrealistic and in the footnote suggests that its preposterousness is illustrated if we try to imagine a Christian schoolboy citing chapter and verse of a line from the Bible in a similar way. I’m astounded that Wood, a Professor at Harvard, has never encountered the type of Christian who does exactly that!The second example is in discussing the debate about the pros/cons of realism. Apparently Barthes, in his attack on Realism, famously accuses of Flaubert of describing the presence of a barometer as being purely for effect, for having no meaning beyond an attempt at verisimilitude, unlike the symbolism associated with pianos and other objects that are described. But historically, barometers do have symbolism. They, along with telescopes and timepieces, etc. are associated with rationalism and the Enlightenment. I would hope that some literary theorist out there has pointed this out, but if so, they seem to have been ignored, because this seems to have become the example par excellence of description for description’s sake. Perhaps this lack of knowledge is forgivable, but what I find even more amazing is that Wood, Nuttall, Barthes and, by inference, many other literary theorists, don’t actually understand how barometers work! Wood is positively gleeful about how useless they are and how they are only owned by people trying to appear middle-class. You’d think they would make an attempt to find out before revealing their ignorance in print. And no — it does not appear to be being said in irony (p.65-6).There are many other examples like these, and of course, the wider points he is trying illustrate are still valid. However, it definitely makes me question him as being a voice of authority.

To begin with, title is misleading. You expect a simplified yet exhaustive explanation of fiction from the title. Instead what you get is a short scholarly exposition of literary theory.That is not to say that this book is only for literature students and literary critics. There are good parts in it with simple explanation of various literary aspects of fiction.Chapters on narration and detail are particularly interesting and eye-opening. About one third of the book deals with varieties of narration. Wood introduced me to 'Free Indirect Style' of narration pioneered by Henry James and Gustave Flaubert. Author gives an example of What Maisie Knew. What Maisie Knew was probably the first novel ever written from the point of view of a child stuck in the middle her parents' divorce. Author states that in a single paragraph James narrates in three different voices; that of Maisie, that of adults understood and interpreted by Maise and the author himself.Another interesting chapter is about innovative phrases authors incorporate to describe seemingly mundane details. For example, description of fire is given as 'rushing bouquet' by DH Lawrence and as 'a scarlet handful of fire' by Thomas Hardy.How Fiction Works may not have been as good as How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas Foster, but it did open me up to 'Free Indirect Style' of narration and it did make me want to read almost everything by James, Flaubert, Hardy and Lawrence. If you like books about books and literary criticism then you should read this book.

It says so much that I came to Jame Wood so late. I'd been reading Martin Amis and the rest for a long time before I even heard of him. Wood is humane, perceptive, not interested in gleeful hatchet-jobs on the second-rate or pointless discussions of private life. (It's so much easier to talk about Hemingway's hunting trips than it is to talk about which books are actually worth reading, and why.Wood is also not interested in showing off his cleverness by talking up "unjustly neglected" writers. He focuses on the big names and talks carefully about what makes them worth reading. Few, if any rivals.