|  | | | Customer Reviews: | | | Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 A Number of Shortcomings But Entertaining Enough Oct 19, 2009
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. 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. 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. 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. 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'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). But when I reached the chapter on this topic, I found Wood lapsing into uninformative and quizzical generalizations. 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. 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). At which point the book abruptly ends. 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. what is its objective and what does it add to the reader's insight. The discussion didn't provide much more than would an average run-of-the-mill introductory text for Poetry 101. 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". 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.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 I don't want to know how the magician does his tricks Oct 08, 2009
I have read this book in sections and I've enjoyed the discussions about books I've read very much. Mr. Woods is a clear thinker and has done careful readings of the works he speaks of. Reading it I realized that I'm not that interested in what it is writers do that draws me in. I just like being enveloped by the writing. 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.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Not as interesting as I had hoped Aug 30, 2009
I picked up this book after hearing the author interviewed for a half hour on the radio. 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. M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel, and whereas Forster admired plot, Woods asserted that plot was mostly irrelevant.
I was disappointed in the book for the same reasons I enjoyed the interview. The book itself is fairly short and typeset onto small pages. 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. 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. 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.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Thisness and Lifeness Aug 25, 2009
'How Fiction Works' is a reasoned approach, element by element, to Mr. Wood's ideas of *why* successful literature is effective. This is theory, but not so technical that readers unfamiliar with literary criticism (like me) will feel out of their depths. In fact, Mr. 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. 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. 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. 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. What is frankly bewildering to me is the inclusion of Mr. Wood's short, throwaway asides concerning religion.
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". 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. Ironic comparison, I suppose, if you feel the way Mr. Wood does about religion. Insulting if not.
Then, on page 143, as Mr. 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. 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. 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'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 posits that unlikable characters, even monstrous ones, are justified in artistic works to explore that facet of humanity. I agree. 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. 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. Is he advocating such behavior or examining it? The difference is critical. Even in the example 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. That is acutely different from simply 'disliking' the film's characters. 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.
What other proof does Mr. Wood's offer for this plague of moralizing niceness? 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. Without it, the idea remains essentially the same. With it, he condemns the whole Amazon review system. 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.
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. The larger question is why someone would feel it necessary to include inflammatory remarks in a book on literary theory at all. 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. Retailing at 14 dollars on the bookshelf, that makes it 13 dollars and 98 cents too much.
2 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 Blue Blue Blue Aug 16, 2009
This is a nice read. Do I give it five stars because he says everything that needs to be said about fiction? No. The five stars are for the fact that if this book were a person you'd be dying to meet him out one night and chat him up. His book gets you thinking about fiction in an organized way that is his and his alone. How often do you encounter that? Pretend like your opinion is more relevant and then shove that somewhere. For ten dollars and a long afternoon you can't do wrong with this book if only for your very own responses. BUt it is worth more than that. When I read this book it interrupted my reading habits and forced me to consider them in his light, damn valuable. Those one-star reviewers are missing the potential of this book in their pride of opinion, or something like that.
|
| |
|
![Up (4 Disc Combo Pack with Digital Copy and DVD) [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51V%2Beipy8-L._SL75_.jpg "Up (4 Disc Combo Pack with Digital Copy and DVD) [Blu-ray]")
![Across the Universe [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51T24FuHPEL._SL75_.jpg "Across the Universe [Blu-ray]")
![Underworld Trilogy (Underworld / Underworld: Evolution / Underworld: Rise of the Lycans) [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51F27VzUl%2BL._SL75_.jpg "Underworld Trilogy (Underworld / Underworld: Evolution / Underworld: Rise of the Lycans) [Blu-ray]")
![Shakira: Oral Fixation Tour [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RQUEopdlL._SL75_.jpg "Shakira: Oral Fixation Tour [Blu-ray]")
