Over an extraordinary twenty-year career, Jane Smiley has written all kinds of novels: mystery, comedy, historical fiction, epic. “Is there a...
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Dec 16, 2009
David
rated it: 
So many books .... so little time. Last year I read over a hundred books, yet I still feel I barely scratched the surface. There’s always the sense of falling further behind. One can certainly understand the appeal of Pierre Bayard’s “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read”, if only as an aid to help keep your head above water, to help navigate the tsunami of new material which bombards us monthly.
But that’s not what this review is about. Jane Smiley’s “Thirteen ways of Looking at More...
But that’s not what this review is about. Jane Smiley’s “Thirteen ways of Looking at More...
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Jun 09, 2011
Paul
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If Jane Smiley's brain was a car it wouldn't be a car it would be a chunky powerful red tractor forever heaving things out of deep ditches and making a hell of a loud noise whilst doing so. Every time I read some of this big book it's like she's four inches from my face yelling things. But quite a lot of what she's yelling is really good. Frinstance -
"unfortunately for the highly ideological novelist, ideas change - the first things to die in any novel are those precious social More...
"unfortunately for the highly ideological novelist, ideas change - the first things to die in any novel are those precious social More...
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Feb 19, 2008
Jessica
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I wish Jane Smiley were on Bookface so that she could be my Bookster. I guess that isn't really necessary, though, thanks to this!
I really, really enjoyed 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel. I think it's great for someone who, like me, enjoys reading novels but doesn't think much about what they are or why she likes them, who'd appreciate some framework for thinking about them that isn't based at all in literary criticism or theory. Smiley isn't writing as an academic or a critic, but More...
I really, really enjoyed 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel. I think it's great for someone who, like me, enjoys reading novels but doesn't think much about what they are or why she likes them, who'd appreciate some framework for thinking about them that isn't based at all in literary criticism or theory. Smiley isn't writing as an academic or a critic, but More...
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Jan 05, 2009
Dusty
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I thought this book would be light and breezy, probably because of ill-informed notions I had of Smiley as a writer (I guess I placed her near Anne Tyler in some kind of continuum), and because of the folksy title. The conceit behind the book is that shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, Smiley found herself not just stuck/bored with the novel she'd been writing, but also unsure about the importance of The Novel in general. So she set the book aside and read 100 novels over the next three years. The not
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Nov 24, 2007
Elizabeth
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This is a long book and I'm not sure who it was written for. I thought it was going to be an examination, from a personal perspective, of novels that Smiley liked, admired, and/or thought were relevant in the history of the novel. It is that, in a way; it's also a how-to book for would-be novelists; something that completely confused and didn't add anything to the value of the book. Overall the book is confused. It does not have the rigor of a scholarly work and it doesn't have the charm of a me
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Feb 17, 2009
Heather
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I originally picked this book up at the library because I had fallen in love with How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster; that book changed the way I read, and it made me want to read more on the artistry behind reading and writing. The text started off at a crawl, the reader has to want to read this and plug through the dense language to get at the important message and value of this book. This is not dissimiliar to Smiley's works of fiction, as they generally start off slo
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Jun 14, 2011
Jane
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The goal of a good novel is to understand a character more completely than the reader understands herself, according to Jane Smiley. To do so, abundance is the key, and in her book 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel, Smiley provides an abundance of ideas far beyond her numeric 13.
When writing your novel, Smiley insists your characters possess an abundance of talent, misfortune, and feral nature, and you must pepper everything with insight and paradoxes. A story about war is really about More...
When writing your novel, Smiley insists your characters possess an abundance of talent, misfortune, and feral nature, and you must pepper everything with insight and paradoxes. A story about war is really about More...
Oct 10, 2010
Alice
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This is a filet mignon of a book: meaty, delicious, and satisfying. I've enjoyed most of Smiley's fiction (except "Greenlanders" - WTF?), and this non-fiction work shows me exactly why that is. She discusses her own work, but also undertook to read 100 novels when she was having a bout of writer's block. That project resulted in this book. In the first half, she discusses various aspects of the novel, in general. She also gives a couple of chapters worth of writing tips. The last half
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Jan 12, 2010
Glen
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One of the ways to consider this unusual book by Pulitzer-prize winning author Smiley is as an instruction book. I purchased this because it came up as a featured selection of the Writer's Digest Book Club, and its as good a book regarding the process of writing a novel as any I've read, and better than most. Smiley points out that, unlike many other artistic endeavors, the novel is one that doesn't require much equipment (paper and a pen/pencil). What it takes, more than anything is motivatioon
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Nov 23, 2009
This is a little daunting because I feel reading it like a stupid ninth grader who has never taken an English class not a graduate of a good college who took 400-level English courses. On the other hand I feel like when/if I finish it I will be able to TEACH a 400-level English class - or at least ninth grade English. I think that it's interesting that my teachers and professors never stopped to talk for long about what a novel is - I mean they went over the origins of the novel - damn, I thin
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Feb 05, 2009
Critical opinion varies greatly on the discourse offered by this Pulitzer Prize winner on the biography and art of the novel. While some critics applaud her convictions on what makes a novel and a novelist, others feel she needs to exit the classroom and enter the minds of the mainstream reader. As the author of 11 novels who turned her attention to devouring books when she lost inspiration while writing Good Faith (**** July/Aug 2003) during 9/11, she has certainly done her homework. Perhaps th
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Mar 21, 2008
Carrie
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If I could, I'd give this book both a five and a one. Some of this book is gut-wrenching and life -affirming (if your life happens to revolve, in any way, around novels. Mine does.) She has a whole section about how reading novels teaches empathy, and I love that. But her summaries of the 100 novels she read, well, they kind of piss me off sometimes. Lolita is mediocre? I dunno, Jane.
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Oct 31, 2011
thegift
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actually I have not read the entirety, just the 13 chapters where she offers ways of looking at novels, then of the hundred she chooses to review I read a few I will likely never read, such as heptameron, then only those I have read, starting with don quixote. I have read 38 of these.
interesting in a way, she analyzes more as an ordinary but well read reader, than as an academic theorist. she talks more about what i think of as 'story' qualities eg. plot, character, setting, and h More...
interesting in a way, she analyzes more as an ordinary but well read reader, than as an academic theorist. she talks more about what i think of as 'story' qualities eg. plot, character, setting, and h More...
Nov 19, 2008
Smiley's prose is well-crafted but dull and meandering. There are neither bold claims nor humor. She has some good insights, but they seem to lie at the bottom of a sty: they might well be worth reading but do you really want to dig through the mud and dung to get there? The best part of the book is her analysis of the 100 novels--there she is pithy and her choice of novels is quite fascinating.
I thought it funny that she didn't admire "The Unberable Lightness of Being." Per More...
I thought it funny that she didn't admire "The Unberable Lightness of Being." Per More...
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Feb 15, 2009
Mindy
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The second half of this large book consists of short essays on the one hundred books that Smiley read as a self-assigned project. To be honest, I only glanced at those essays. The first half of the book, on the other hand, is at times captivating, at times dull. She has much wisdom to dispense to both novel readers and writers, and she is an insightful and interesting critic, but I was lost and disinterested when she discussed books I hadn't read. (Which she occasionally does. At length.) I thin
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May 16, 2009
Sheila
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This book is pretty much my bible of good fiction writing. It looks at the history and development of the novel, and has two excellent chapters of advice for fiction writers. Smiley lists 100 significant and influential novels that she read as she set about formalizing her understanding of the form. I have really enjoyed using this as a checklist, noting the books I had already read at the time I first read "13 Ways of Looking at the Novel," and since then referring to it for ideas of
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Sep 04, 2011
John
rated it:
Really two books in one - several ways of analyzing what makes a book a "novel", and a second section containing chronological analyses of the 101 novels read by the author to use as discussion material. Smiley does a good job of keeping things approachable for a casual reader (yours truly, for example), though the going got a bit rough with not-so-current references (The Decameron, etc.). I've thus rated it as three stars, but those with a stronger background in literature (and lit cr
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May 04, 2011
Corinna
rated it:
For me to say that I have read this book is not entirely true - I've read some of it and will continue to use it as time goes by. Jane Smiley is here part memoirist and part professor - she read 100 novels and uses them to illustrate points she wants to make about the art and craft of writing novels. This is more a book for students of literature and writers than it is for the general reader, in my opinion, and she's a bit too verbose for my needs (570 pages), but by picking and choosing, I th
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Apr 27, 2010
Ashlie
rated it:
Reading this book was like taking an English/writing class, except without the papers, the class fees, and the droning professor. (As an aside I loved all of my English professors, writing or otherwise!) I've never read anything by Jane Smiley but it was interesting how she dealt with an episode of writer's block by deconstructing the origins of the novel. I found the chapters dealing specifically with the writing of a novel very captivating, since all my writing classes focused on short story w
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Dec 13, 2011
Larry
rated it:
I was not optimistic about Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel after I got it on GR Bookswap. The second half is about 100 books that the author thinks will “illuminate the whole concept of the novel.” I have read one of them (To Kill a Mockingbird) and heard of only about one-third more. Probably more than George W. Bush but still embarrassing for a college english major. Smiley takes Bush (who said his favorite book is The Very Hungry Caterpillar) to task in the chapter on history. She got p
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Oct 20, 2011
Gerald
rated it:
Okay, I'm cheating. I finished everything except Smiley's reviews of her 100 novels (which is half the book!). But Smiley tells me how to finish the book. She suggests that her reader should dip into the last half--read it in no particular order, to get suggestions for novels he may want to read. Since I have read many of the novels she read, I will read what she has to say about the novels I know, and I will read her reviews of other novels I wish to read. So I probably will never finish this b
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Jul 26, 2011
Marie
rated it:
I think I may have to buy this book.
I didn't *love* it, but it's an academic book, and dense, and there's a lot I want to review.
However long it's been on my "currently reading" list, it didn't actually take me 7 months to read. But the library kept taking it back, and it wasn't something meant to read in one sitting.
Smiley is insightful and intelligently articulates what she thinks the novel is, which I must admit I don't fully agree with. Neverthe More...
I didn't *love* it, but it's an academic book, and dense, and there's a lot I want to review.
However long it's been on my "currently reading" list, it didn't actually take me 7 months to read. But the library kept taking it back, and it wasn't something meant to read in one sitting.
Smiley is insightful and intelligently articulates what she thinks the novel is, which I must admit I don't fully agree with. Neverthe More...
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Jun 15, 2011
David
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Books about books can be interesting or deadly dull, and books with one author's arbitrary list of "100 books I think you should read" can likewise be great when they convince you to add a few to your TBR shelf, or annoying when you find yourself saying "Come on -- a list full of obscure 19th century novels most people have never heard of, but no love at all for genre fiction?" I found myself doing both while reading 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel. Jane Smiley talks about no
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Oct 10, 2010
Sharon
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This is a filet mignon of a book: meaty, delicious, and satisfying. I've enjoyed most of Smiley's fiction (except "Greenlanders" - WTF?), and this non-fiction work shows me exactly why that is. She discusses her own work, but also undertook to read 100 novels when she was having a bout of writer's block. That project resulted in this book. In the first half, she discusses various aspects of the novel, in general. She also gives a couple of chapters worth of writing tips. The las
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Jul 19, 2010
Cynthia
rated it:
Parts of this very wonderful book got two stars and parts got five stars, thus my three-star rating. It's not an exact science.
This is a big, keep-on-the shelf reference for would-be novelists. Lots of really important tips for authors, very practical stuff. Like David noted on his Goodreads review, there are quite a few novelists who should really study this before they write again.
My expectations for this chunky, pithy, reference was that it would be a book for readers. More...
This is a big, keep-on-the shelf reference for would-be novelists. Lots of really important tips for authors, very practical stuff. Like David noted on his Goodreads review, there are quite a few novelists who should really study this before they write again.
My expectations for this chunky, pithy, reference was that it would be a book for readers. More...
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Jun 27, 2008
Jeffrey
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OK, so you want to write. Well, if you like to work and work hard, this is for you. But I must tinge that statement a bit. If you need to write, were born to write, have no option, then it actually isn't work because the breath and depth of your understanding of life and ability to communicate it to the masses is priceless. Smiley (a nice last name for someone who loves the writing process, eh?) is a Pulitzer Prize winner who looks at writing from 13 perspectives based on 100 novels: Anne Tyler'
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May 24, 2007
Anne
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The premise of Smiley's book is as follows: she had writer's block, and to break it, she read one hundred novels to help clarify what the novel is and what it means. The book is divided in two parts: the first is thirteen chapters on ways the novel is either constructed, or can be viewed, or both; the second half is short essays on the books Smiley read for the project. The first half is much stronger, since the chapters are written for a broad (if highly literate) audience. The short essays on
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Nov 29, 2008
James
rated it:
Smiley classifies and defines the novel, and also provides a primer of supportive instructions to the struggling writer. She explores why some novels succeed, and some don’t. She finishes off with a list of 100 books she had recently read, from thousand-year old texts to recent best-sellers, offering her own insights and assessments. She provides a glimpse into the creative process, and gives writers and readers new ways to be aware of what goes on between the pages.
Jan 07, 2012
Gabriel
rated it:
I could care less about the author's opinion of the books she reviewed in the second part of this nonfiction work, and some of her political opinion, even from the point of view of one sharing her beliefs, rambles endlessly, but there are nuggets of wisdom to be gained from those willing to trudge through the book--a success in spite of the author. 3 and a half stars.
