How Fiction Works

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“[Wood] tells us in his preface that the book ‘asks theoretical questions but answers them practically,’ and by practical, he means analysis of techniques as illustrated by a series of generally superb line-by-line readings. This is a technical book, a primer of sorts, of interest to the practicing writer but probably most useful and illuminating for the serious reader who enjoys the fictive ride and wants to take a look under the hood.”—Christopher Tilghman, The Washington Post

"[Wood] opens his introduction by referring to John Ruskin's The Elements of Drawing, published in 1857, 'a patient primer,' Wood writes, 'intended by casting a critic's eye over the business of creation, to help the practicing painter, the curious viewer, the ordinary art lover.' So How Fiction Works is, or is intended to be, a specialist's guide for the nonspecialist, and with this aim in view it remains resolutely nontechnical and amply accommodating. Wood displays his usual genius for apt quotation, and as always his enthusiasm for those writers about whom he is enthusiastic is both convincing and endearing. If Roland Barthes had not already used the title, this book might well have been called A Lover's Discourse . . . He mentions also E. M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel and Milan Kundera's three books on the art of fiction, but only in order delicately to dismiss them—of Kundera he remarks, with what is surely a tolerantly patrician smile, that 'occasionally we want his hands to be a bit inkier with text.' Barthes and Shklovsky on the other hand, 'thought like writers: they attended to style, to words, to form, to metaphor and imagery,' a trait which Wood shares in abundance. Yet in a profound way he disagrees with and even disapproves of them and, by implication, therefore, disagrees with all other critics who, like them, 'thought like writers alienated from creative instinct, and were drawn, like larcenous bankers, to raid again and again the very source that sustained them—literary style.' This tendency to stylistic pilfering, of which, as has been implied above, Wood himself is not entirely free, led his two admired predecessors to conclusions about the novel that are 'wrongheaded' and against which Wood's book is, he tells us, a sustained argument. After this bit of spirited internecine sparring Wood adopts a brisk and practical tone, listing some of the 'essential questions' about fiction that he will address: on the nature of realism, on the definition of metaphor, on the reality or otherwise of fictional character, on the importance of detail, on point of view, on imaginative sympathy; he sets out his hope that 'this book might be one which asks theoretical questions but answers them practically—or to say it differently, asks a critic's questions and offers a writer's answers.' All this is admirable, and admirably stated . . . As we see, then, Wood's aim is an admirably old-fashioned humanistic affirmation not only of the aesthetic but of the educational value inherent in art, and specifically in the art of fiction . . . Like the figures in our dreams, the characters we encounter in fiction are really us, and the story we are told is the story of ourselves. And therein resets the delightful paradox that the novelist's transcendent lies are eminently more truthful than all the facts in the world, that they are, in Wood's formulation, 'true lies.' This is what Wood means when, dealing with fiction, he speaks of the real. It is an unfashionable view, and not the only possible and surely not the only valid one, but in the hands of this fiercely committed critic, and consummate stylist, it compels us to look that way with him."—John Banville, The New York Review of Books

"Wood's models for the 'best' in fiction will not surprise either his admirers or his detractors. He has his contemporary favorites, but the models are the masters: Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, James and above all, never far from view, Flaubert. He tells us in his preface that the book 'asks theoretical questions but answers them practically,' and by practical, he means analysis of techniques as illustrated by a series of generally superb line-by-line readings. This is a technical book, a primer of sorts, of interest to the practicing writer but probably most useful and illuminating for the serious reader who enjoys the fictive ride and wants to take a look under the hood."—Christopher Tilghman, The Washington Post

"His essential point is this: Novels and short stories succeed or fail according to their capacity (a capacity that has progressed over the centuries rather like the march of science) to represent, affectingly and credibly, the actual workings of the human mind as it interacts with the real world. The mind and the world, as Wood defines them, are dependable, fixed phenomena, for the most part, possessed of natural, intrinsic qualities that fiction writers in their ink-stained lab coats measure, prod, explore and seek to illustrate using a rather limited range of instruments that can be endlessly adjusted . . . Wood’s precise, dialectical approach is well adapted to tracing the paradoxes behind standard literary conventions . . . he makes many nuanced observations about the fetishes and habits that mark individual writers’ styles."—The New York Times Book Review

"In his poem 'The Novelist,' W.H. Auden contrasts novelists with poets in terms of their different aptitudes. Poets can 'dash forward like hussars,' but novelists must '

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This gets back to the last point: Wood doesn't worry about the big picture and focuses on details. (And of course, that I would begin a sentence using the verb `to argue' to state a position shows that I'm also at the high end of literary cultural capital, though my origins are sufficiently rural that I think anyone today who claims to enjoy reading James or Joyce is kidding themselves).The specific arguments against Wood:1. He writes in jargon. Yep, guilty on that score. So Wood is more interested in what clothes writers put on the skeletons of plots. Gratuitous.

My metaphors are running amok, so I had better stop now. I would argue, however, that even if drained of its attempts at socioeconomic distinction, the book has merit. The best thing to say is, try this book. They would consider Oprah's approval an argument against reading a book, think Dan Brown painfully trite, ditto for any other bestselling author, wouldn't be caught dead reading a self-help book, etc.

The aphorisms, however, allow Wood to pack an enormous amount of insight into a small amount of space. He asks the right questions and his answers generally create two reactions: (a) "I knew that but didn't know how to say it" or (b) "That's such an interesting way of looking about that. (Toward the beginning of what is to become an entire page on a sentence in Woolf: "I am consumed by this sentence, partly because I cannot quite explain why it moves me so much.") And he gets it. At this point, things get awkward as the class divides within the US suddenly become very obvious. And the comments about their reviews that people who like the book write are written with a blistering smugness. Wood is contemptuous of plot. People who are looking for more order to what they read -- they don't like how this is set up as short aphorisms -- have a different set of expectations than what this book fulfills.

I'll have to think about that." I like, for instance, his views on perspective and his claim that a novel lives or dies by how well it explains itself, not by how it lives up to any set of standards.That said, the book generates a lot of negative reviews. So when working class readers read this book thinking it will help them write better fiction (that is, they read it in a utilitarian fashion but would never use the word `utilitarian'), they intuitively sense that he is not one of them, know that he looks down on them and in an offended tone launch a host of criticisms. First, there isn't enough print on the page. Get rid of them and it's still essentially the same brilliant book. They're the physical characteristics that some people consider beautiful in a book.

When I read books on fiction, I'm usually left with the suspicion that the author is like an art critic who, if handed a paintbrush and pushed toward a blank canvass, would suddenly complain about agonizing arthritis of the wrist or how the Muses haven't spoken to them yet that morning. You know the sort: they're on a first name basis with characters from Shakespeare, they're old friends with Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Stendal and Company, and they even claim to derive pleasure from reading the modernists like Joyce. He says what he needs to say and then immediately cuts it off. They raise the price a little, but that's what libraries are for. Why dig at Jesus. Second, it doesn't have the proper structure of a book. And sometimes his sense of humor, even if privileged, is dead on.2.

He's a snob. The reason, I suspect, is mostly a matter of class, specifically literary cultural capital. The large margins, the retro design, the deckle edge -- these are not attempts to bamboozle people. He comes across as someone who writes about fiction, not because he can't write it himself, but because he just so damn excited about it. So if most books are a marathon, this is a series of sprints. Why only reference books you own.

If you don't like the book, at a minimum you'll have a better sense of your own literary class position. If you read a lot of novels, you appreciate that except for the truly great books that create entirely new genres in their wake, most novels don't have that many plot innovations and it's the same thing over and over again, so you get into an attitude of `plots smots'. They can yack all day about meaning and texture and color but they, despite the desire, can't get much past a stick figure.James Wood is not your average literary critic. It allows readers to pick it up and put it down at will. 4.

This is actually two arguments. Much of the prose is in fact beautiful.3.

This isn't a book. Wood and people who like him are very much at the high end.

This bothers some people, but details are the bricks out of which novels are made. Yet, these passages are but a tiny fraction of the book.

A few reviewers have pulled out a few sentences that are bad, but as one college-age reviewer pointed out, this is a lot better than most books of this ilk. Think about how many movies you don't see because you know, with tired certainty, the ending just by watching the trailer.

It covers an enormous sweep of ideas on character, perspective, the limits of realism, etc.

My main disappointment is that Wood has been making the rounds talking about how contemporary fiction is stuck in the mud of "realism", and I was hoping for an enlightening discussion of this; I was expecting more examples of the work of contemporary "post-realist" authors just in case I found Wood's "post-realist" world of literature interesting enough to pursue further. I found this discussion to beg more questions than it addressed.And I may need to sign up for remedial reading comprehension classes, but did Wood never get around to fulfilling his promise of defining the sin of "hyper-realism", of which he accuses Zadie Smith and others.In his discussion of language, he lauds examples which make the reader see things "in a new way", unfortunately without discussing what is the point of the "new way", i.e. High points include the discussions on descriptive technique, narrative voice, and how the Russians were fundamental to the development of novelistic character as we know it. Anyway, the book's really more of a collection of essays containing some interesting observations about fiction, worth a read, but not a re-read. This book isn't a comprehensive, systematic treatise on fiction, despite the promise of the title and the almost obsessive organization of the contents into numerous chapters and sections, many of them only a few pages long. It's all interesting enough, Woods has some fine insights along the way, and it's a fairly quick and entertaining read, though its ultimate objective seems unclear. At which point the book abruptly ends. convincing narrative) exists in all literature; the problem with contemporary fiction is that it is too "conventional", meaning it repeats a pattern born in the 19th century; and what's important in fiction is that it not be conventional and that its "realism" manifest itself as "lifeness" (whatever that means).

The discussion didn't provide much more than an average run-of-the-mill introductory text for Poetry 101. But when I reached the chapter on this topic, I found Wood lapsing into uninformative and quizzical generalizations. Actually, I wonder how seriously Wood takes all this, delivering impossibly ambitious chapter headings like "A Brief History of Consciousness" when the chapter's less than ten pages long. what is its objective and what does it add to the reader's insight. I'm happy to go along with the idea that a novel doesn't need a plot (though I would never describe plot as "juvenile", as Wood does). What's "real"., he asks; you can have all manner of narrative, even the fantastic and dreamlike, which nevertheless can seem "real"; actually, the problem with contemporary fiction isn't "realism", because "realism" (i.e. I did enjoy the description of Flaubert's obsessiveness with language, though.What the reader gets in this book is Wood extolling the virtues of certain passages in certain books (certain "bright moments" in literature he's experienced), loosely organized as a discussion on "How Fiction Works".

Reading it I realized that I'm not that interested in what it is writers do that draws me in. I have read this book in sections and I've enjoyed the discussions about books I've read very much. I just like being enveloped by the writing. Mr. Woods is a clear thinker and has done careful readings of the works he speaks of. I think it would be a great book for students and teachers of writing because it steers clear of jargon. This book is a must read.

Rather than overarching ideas the book is a pastiche of observations of specific techniques ranging from indirect "free" narrative to the use of overflowing metaphor - what my old grade school English teacher would disdainfully call "purple prose", but in the hands of an expert writer (with the help of a literary interpreter ;-) ) can be shown to be effective and evocative.The conversational tone would have been more suited to a talking book. The book itself is fairly short and typeset onto small pages.

He had a wonderful conversational tone and had some interesting snippets to contribute to one's understanding of the construction of literature. The interviewer contrasted the author to E.

I picked up this book after hearing the author interviewed for a half hour on the radio. I was disappointed in the book for the same reasons I enjoyed the interview.

M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel, and whereas Forster admired plot, Woods asserted that plot was mostly irrelevant.

Aside from actual page numbers the book has 123 numbered sections which might have corresponded to original pages in the draft but actually reflect subsection headings which are noted obliquely at the top of the right hand page. Professor Wood has written 2 other books of literary criticism and a novel and I'm not adverse to examining them, but I'd recommend giving this one a pass and go back to Forster.

What is frankly bewildering to me is the inclusion of Mr. Wood's take on religion with his overly simplistic critique of the "contagion of moralizing niceness" permeating modern reviews which denounce a work because of its unlikable characters. Mr. Wood establishes his opinion quickly - in the second paragraph of the book, he quotes Phillip Larkin (religion as "That vast musical moth-eaten brocade") when asserting that both religion and the eighteenth century's stylistic tendency toward 'authorial omniscience' have "had (their) day". Though quite short, the author roots around in literature's history and plucks out gems from Flaubert, Bellow, and Dostoyevsky among others, for exemplary illustrations of: -The difference between detail that is merely place setting, detail that inhabits the object described, and detail that sells the story (Thisness), -What's really real (lifeness),-Going beyond Point of View and into Free Indirect Style, and how even the masters overwrite,-And a rebuttal to E.M. But this is "How Fiction Works", and it is a testament to the power of his irrelevant asides that I remember them as well as his theoretical statements. Perhaps it is a leap, but I can't help connect my inferred views of Mr. Wood provides, a film review in the NY Times, the review's author felt as though the authors of the film "seem to want us to sympathize with, even applaud," lecherous behavior.

The difference is critical. Ironic comparison, I suppose, if you feel the way Mr. Wood's short, throwaway asides concerning religion. In fact, Mr.

Wood, in his (mostly) earnest and guiding style, had limited himself to these discussions, then I think the book's success (regardless if I agree with every idea) would be assured. Wood opts to refer to Jesus Christ as "that cheerless psychologist", it dawns on me that he may have a separate point other than literary criticism he is advocating. Insulting if not.Then, on page 143, as Mr. The insinuation is that I should somehow sublimate my moral repugnance and celebrate the artist regardless - which I will not do until I've satisfied for myself what the author's intent is.

'How Fiction Works' is a reasoned approach, element by element, to Mr. With it, he condemns the whole Amazon review system. Is he advocating such behavior or examining it. Mr. Even in the example Mr. Wood's offer for this plague of moralizing niceness.

It is entirely possible that I've parsed his words to finely, or am too sensitive to these issues, but I find it hard to recommend a book that, in what could have been an educative and enjoyable experience, instead uses its main subject as a cover for (not so) veiled insults. If the goal had been to use the Larkin quote as an example of detail, or of style, then fair enough - but it is there solely to accompany a dusty, outdated convention in order to amplify and enhance it. Wood's style and arguments are not unfairly complex, and those who would be interested in this kind of critique should have little trouble grasping his concepts.That isn't to say that it's a cursory examination. I think it is *absolutely* justified, but to make general statements implying that those who dislike a book's characters are somehow too ignorant (or too timid) to discern the book's artistic merit is nonsense. This is theory, but not so technical that readers unfamiliar with literary criticism (like me) will feel out of their depths. That is acutely different from simply 'disliking' the film's characters. Wood does about religion. The Times review, and "A glance at the thousands of foolish 'reader reviews' on Amazon.com, with their complaints about 'dislikable characters'" It is telling that he chose to include the word 'foolish' in his assertion.

A critic who makes his living analyzing words surely knew what effect his own could have - which, to me, removed the complexity of literary theory from the forefront of the book and instituted James Wood's opinions as the subject. Wood's ideas of *why* successful literature is effective. What other proof does Mr. Wood believes that "A great deal of nonsense is written every day about characters in fiction" - and in this regard, I think he should have taken his own implied advice. I agree. The larger question is why someone would feel it necessary to include inflammatory remarks in a book on literary theory at all. Wood posits that unlikable characters, even monstrous ones, are justified in artistic works to explore that facet of humanity. Forster, in Forster's 'The Aspect of the Novel', of the idea of round and flat characters, along with other notes on dialogue, language and "A Brief History of Consciousness".If Mr.

I find it puzzling that hobby reviewers are so frightening to noted critics such as James Wood and Cynthia Ozick - so much so that they make a special effort to discredit us. I would never deny him that opportunity, and if I had bought the book "How I think Christianity is Slightly Ridiculous" by James Wood, then I would expect such commentary. Mr. Without it, the idea remains essentially the same. Retailing at 14 dollars on the bookshelf, that makes it 13 dollars and 98 cents too much.