<![CDATA[How Fiction Works]]>

false <![CDATA[How Fiction Works]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255569283m/1355465.jpg 1355465 9 What makes a story a story? What is style? What's the connection between realism and real life? These are some of the questions James Wood answers in How Fiction Works, the first book-length essay by the preeminent critic of his generation. Ranging widely--from Homer to David Foster Wallace, from What Maisie Knew to Make Way for Ducklings--Wood takes the reader through the basic elements of the art, step by step. The result is nothing less than a philosophy of the novel--plainspoken, funny, blunt--in the traditions of E. M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel and Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. It sums up two decades of insight with wit and concision. It will change the way you read. 1345179 book 22 7 2008 How Fiction Works total:582|5:161|4:262|3:121|2:32|1:6| 582 2286 1284 188 4 10 false false Wed Nov 12 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Sep 02 19:35:19 -0700 2008 Thu Nov 13 09:18:16 -0800 2008 1 do cultivate a more discriminatory taste so that I read onl...more...]]> 3 5 false false Thu Aug 21 08:15:34 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 21 13:58:20 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 4 false true Thu Dec 25 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Aug 12 16:02:07 -0700 2008 Fri Dec 26 05:46:20 -0800 2008 doesn't work. This is done in a few number of pages, where he covers a lot of ground.

And it works.

One of the things I appreciated the most is that Wood isn't (to use a term ...more...]]> 5 4 false false Wed Oct 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 16 03:46:37 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 16 01:27:07 -0700 2008 How Fiction Works and it now has pride of place among the several books I have owned and explored on the subject. In short, it is excellent.

Wood has a keen eye for the written word and an easy, readable style for explaining what is on the printed page and how it f...more...]]> 4 2 false false Thu Aug 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 03 11:18:35 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 15 08:07:57 -0700 2009
Many topics are covered: narration, detail, character, language and dialog, to name a few. Dozens of books are ci...more...]]> 3 2 false false Thu Nov 27 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 27 01:44:02 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 27 01:44:02 -0800 2008
Points in this book's favor -

It's short, and very readable. In the second of two introductions, Wood promises to be "mindful of the common reader" and to try to "reduce .. the scholastic stink to bearable leve...more...]]> 3 2 false false Sat Aug 30 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 11 15:11:00 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 14 03:57:05 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 2 false false Tue Feb 26 18:54:40 -0800 2008 Sat Aug 16 01:12:41 -0700 2008
***

The fact that I am reading this twice in a row must mean something. Wood is clearly passionate about literature, and this love comes through in his articulate and pleasant prose. I enjoyed his clo...more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Jan 14 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 19 12:29:16 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 19 12:31:03 -0800 2009
Lots of times I'm able to hold onto this as a source of pride, in that I "believe in" realism and what it can accomplish—what it has accomplished for me as a lifelong reader. But lots of other times I understand it as a limitation. I do the best I can,...more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 18 11:59:44 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 18 12:07:24 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 22 08:57:49 -0800 2009 Wed Apr 01 07:16:38 -0700 2009 The house of fiction has many windows, but only two or three doors.

In How Fiction Works, the critic James Wood tries “to be mindful of the common reader” and reduce was Joyce calls, “true scholastic stink” to bearable levels. Like an art critic would break down the elements of ...more...]]> 4 2 false false Sun Nov 23 13:22:25 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 23 13:53:44 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 20 18:41:45 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 20 18:44:01 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun May 11 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun May 11 11:28:39 -0700 2008 Sun May 11 12:10:29 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 22 16:27:14 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 23 03:29:27 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Aug 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Jul 27 11:18:44 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 10 20:16:37 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jan 04 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 04 13:59:53 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 04 14:12:11 -0800 2009
How Fiction Works is not an instructional manual on how to write fiction but rather a connected series of observations about what we understand fiction to be and in whose hands the common tools used in its con...more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jul 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 16 17:27:51 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 16 17:46:10 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Dec 19 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue May 12 18:53:07 -0700 2009 Tue May 12 18:58:48 -0700 2009
By this measure, James Wood’s How Fiction Works is filled with excitement. Realists Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Spark and Woolf stand as the protagonists in one corner, against Rick Mood...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Aug 24 09:19:56 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 24 09:26:14 -0700 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=1355465