Customer Reviews

How Fiction Works

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An engrossing examination of the writers art, and a must read for anyone with a love of books and writing. James Wood explores classic and modern writers and their works to divine the essence of what makes great literature - looking at narration, detail, dialogue and other characteristics that make up a novel. This illuminating and erudite study of fiction should be read by all aspiring authors and book worms who ponder over the elusive qualities that create great literature.

I heard just a part of one of James Wood's five "Essays" on the BBC Radio 3 late night slot and it alone sent me running out to buy this book. Well that would have been the reaction a few years ago. Now it was straight to the computer and Amazon Prime. I consumed / devoured / gobbled this easy-to-read slim volume, in little sessions, so rich the tastes and text(ure)s. He writes with that easy to read style, is almost always convincing, always lucid, always provocative, fresh and serious.
I'm about to attack a work of fiction, my first, trying to whittle it down / refine / compress it and Dr. Wood's work (along with a 'How to write' book by a writer named Prose, which I'm also finding of value) will be by my side. I'm sure I'll dip into Wood's off and on in the years to come, its short numbered sections, reminiscent (sp?) of Lodge's "Art of Fiction"'s lay-out, which I used when teaching screen-writing, making it easy to find nourishment in its bite-size entries. These few (hurried) words are in appreciation and thanks.

The title attracted my attention: I know what I like when I read it, but I don't always stop to analyse how it works, or even why. I also wondered, as I made a decision to read, whether a book of less than 300 pages could address this to my satisfaction.

I found the book interesting. Far from attempting definitive answers, Professor Wood poses a set of questions to consider as part of critical reading. Consider the following:
`What do we mean when we say we `know' a fictional character?'
`What constitutes a `telling' detail?'
`When is a metaphor successful?'
`Why do most endings of novels disappoint?'
Professor Wood covers the narrative and style of a range of different authors, including Homer, Austen, Woolf, Bellow, Beatrix Potter, Coetzee, Le Carre and Pynchon.

For me, this book is a starting point rather than a destination. I enjoyed the writing, didn't always share the conclusions and would like to consider further some of the other forms of fiction apart from novels.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Very interesting and readable - I liked the style history with the key developments as well as some pointers about different possible methods. This is aimed at the educated reader as well as the writer and benefits from being more real as a result. I got the hang of the free and indirect style within ten minutes of finishing reading the chapter; although, I do have to go back again as it is a fine and complex piece of human technology. I wish my English teachers had read this book, as despite having an English A-level many years ago, it really changed my perception of the novel.

Don't take heed of the other reviews, this is a truly brilliant book. Part-literary criticism, part advice on how to write a novel, and part poetry. Wood's is a critic who writes like a superb poet-novelist and everything he has to say is pertinent to every would be critic and/or would be novelist. The book isn't just an account of how novels work, but how they can work better.

There are some truly awe-inspiring passages in this book, I had to put it down few times just to savour the writing and the ideas.

Don't just take my word for it, read the opening few pages. You'll be impressed.

This book comes with a quote from the New York Review of Books on the cover that describes Wood as 'the strongest...literary critic we have'. The missing words are 'and strangest'. I wonder why they chose to omit those words? And what does it mean to be a strong literary critic? That you can read War and Peace while holding it between your thumb and little finger? Having said that, this a gem of a book, although perhaps it should be called How to Read rather than How Fiction Works because there is very little examination of either characterisation or narrative. Instead there are many examples from writers such as Henry James, DH Lawrence, Virginia Woolf and Henry Green with critiques so perceptive that you feel inspired to return to their works. Wood's taste is at once austere and baroque: he wants the novel to do good, but to be stylish and new at the same time. And at least he doesn't recommend the work of Lawrence Durrell!

This is obviously a work of genius. To have such wonderful insight and knowledge of literature at thirty five is exemplary. What I read in this book will affect my fiction going forward. There's no avoiding this, because I was exposed to new ideas, new considerations while reading through the 123 sections of this book. I've read a lot of pompous reviews out there saying this book is too focused on Flaubert, or simply covers things already discussed. I call bull chips -- the reviewers themselves seem like overbearing, pompous sciolists more often than not.

This is a great work no serious writer of fiction should go without reading. Read it -- then read everything mentioned in it, not just in the bibliography but the footnotes as well. If you missed reading any of these great works or authors during your larval stage as a creator, then your intellectual capacity to create literature is likely as malformed as a hideous, hunchbacked bell-ringer. Okay, Quasimodo, go crack open this book and get to reading! ;)

I enjoyed this review of writing styles very much. The author opens up and displays the very obvious but craftily hidden techniques of the great novelists, focusing on the concept of voice - who is speaking and how. The book opened my horizons and may make me a better writer, too.

Really enjoyed reading Wood on how fiction works. In a discipline rife with the verbose, the convoluted and the pompous, his plain clarity of thought is refreshing.
He's also unafraid to nail his colours to the mast and point at examples of very bad style from very established writers (Updike etc).

Examining historical fiction writing.

I must admit that it was the title that grabbed me. Then after reading the blurb and quotes on the back I decided to buy it (Waterstone's high street store, not here).

However, I personally was disappointed in the book. Maybe I just misunderstood, or assumed the contents. I thought there were going to be more insights and actual instruction and guidelines. But it was more a look into fiction, especially historical fiction - glancing at the bibliography in the back will tell you this: Don Quixote 1615, King James Bible 1611, Robinson Crusoe 1719, Pride and Prejudice 1813. Then another 30 books that the author references up to 1900. There are about 15 offerings from 1980 onwards.

I found this book to be an 'examination' of certain historical authors 'style's' etc. At times it was a little too scientific in approach and overall not of much help to me - that's not to say it won't be of help to other people.

If you are interested in historical fiction in general and you like to examine sections from older books then you might like this. If, on the other hand, you are after something a little more hands-on using recent authors and novels as examples and something that has more of a 'how to' feel about it with an element of instruction, I would keep browsing the web and look for alternatives.

If you look at other books written by this author: 'The Broken Estate: Essays on Literature and Belief" you begin to get a picture of what this author produces. He certainly likes the classics.

At the very least, I'd recommend reading some sample chapters online before committing to buying the book.

This isn't really a negative review, more a slightly perplexed one as I don't' really know who this book is aimed at and frankly I'm sup prised Vintage published it as it is not really a book you can pigeonhole.