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Liked It “this is a real pleasure to read but just a few pages at a time because it's most definitely a food-for-thought type of book. His bibliography at the back is fun; it makes you want to make up your own list of To Read books.” see full review » see other reviews » |
Didn’t Like It “Though there were certain chapters of this book I really enjoyed, on the whole, I didn't enjoy reading it. There were too many quotations from outside sources, and I couldn't understand Wood's point when I haven't read his outside sources. I feel like this book was written for an older audience,...” see full review » see other reviews » |
Newest Reviews
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“this is a real pleasure to read but just a few pages at a time because it's most definitely a food-for-thought type of book. His bibliography at the back is fun; it makes you want to make up your own list of To Read books. ”
sheila i wrote this review Wednesday, October 14 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I thought this was excellent. Particularly the opening section in which the author describes the close third person perspective. I found the analysis really revealing and insightful in describing how the author gives life to the text by using words appropriate to the character.”
Geoff H wrote this review Thursday, July 30 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Brilliant analysis of the very best of fiction: dialogue, language (metaphor, for example), characterization, theme, etc. Woods teaches you how to read and appreciate fiction with his cheeky, intellectual charm. ”
Mike B wrote this review Tuesday, July 28 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“The title kills me! It has the basic heft and appeal of someone writing a "How to" book or a manual on how the internal combustion engine works. For this reason, I read it with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Mark V wrote this review Sunday, May 24 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
But I am certainly glad I read it. Wood acts like a museum guide through the House of Literature, explaining characterization, language, narration, and other fine points in fiction writing. If he is going to be a name-dropper, this is the book within which to do it; he references everything from the Iliad to David Foster Wallace and several different continents and ages come within his range (but only a few women authors: Woolf, Eliot, Austen, Spark, and he blasts Murdoch).
”“This book wasn't really useful. On reading the title, I felt split between liking the simplicity, and worrying about the grandeur of the claim to explain how fiction actually worked. As I read, I felt that the latter was the more apt response. A lot of it seems to be written not to explain, but rather to show how much J. Wood has read, and how much he knows about the various critical schools. I don't, personally, feel that that is all that helpful to somebody who wants to write - it's helpful in allowing an explanation of what one is trying to do without actually bothering to write.”
A P S wrote this review Sunday, March 15 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Sparse but interesting. Considering his experience in reviewing, I think he could have gone much further.”
C.M. Harris wrote this review Tuesday, February 24 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“Though there were certain chapters of this book I really enjoyed, on the whole, I didn't enjoy reading it. There were too many quotations from outside sources, and I couldn't understand Wood's point when I haven't read his outside sources. I feel like this book was written for an older audience, or an audience that has studied literature much longer than me. However, I did learn some things from this book that I will never forget. I just personally didn't like reading it.”
The Black Jackal wrote this review Saturday, November 15 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“For such a grand topic, this small book is concise. But Wood, a staff writer at “The New Yorker” and a lecturer in English and American literature at Harvard, does not disappoint.
Gordon H wrote this review Friday, August 29 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
A renowned critic, Wood wants to reach “the common reader” and “to reduce what Joyce calls ‘the true scholastic stink’ to bearable levels.” He also claims to “have used only the books I actually own—the books at hand in my study.” If that’s the case, he has a magnificent study, and he is no common reader.
Yet despite his learning and wide reading, Wood shares a plethora of insights about fiction that will reward readers and writers alike. His goal is to make us better readers, but writers will find much here to learn from and be inspired by. This book reinforces the maxim that reading is good training for good writing.
He even conflates the two, as when he points out that detail “that enters a character but refuses to explain that character makes us the writer as well as the reader; we seem like co-creators of the character’s existence.”
Wood draws out lessons that go beyond mere pleasure in reading: “Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practice on life itself; which in turn makes us better readers of detail in literature; which in turn makes us better readers of life.” And, he notes, our life experience aids our reading: “We grow, as readers, and twenty-year-olds are relative virgins. They have not read enough literature to be taught by it how to read it.”
Wood looks at the various elements of fiction: narrating, detail, character, sympathy and complexity, language, dialogue and his distinction between realism and truth. Throughout he incorporates examples from literature to illustrate his points. From these, which are varied and many, he reveals some of his preferences. He likes (perhaps adores) Flaubert and James, for instance, but does not like Updike and David Foster Wallace. He includes a bibliography (in chronological order) of 99 works he refers to.
He is at his best when analyzing the elements of good fiction and offering examples. Among his many insights are these:
• “First-person narration is generally more reliable than unreliable; and third-person ‘omniscient’ is generally more partial than omniscient.”
• “The novel is the great virtuoso of exceptionalism: it always wriggles out of the rules thrown around it.”
• “Woolf properly argued that we judge fiction’s success not just for its ability to evoke ‘life’ but for its ability to delight us with more formal properties, like pattern and language.”
When Wood slips into arguments with previous critics, such as Roland Barthes and Viktor Shklovsky, he is less engaging to the common reader. And while for the most part his writing is easily followed, occasionally he uses academic jargon, such as “characterological relativity.”
“How Fiction Works” is a great companion for deepening one’s reading experience and will aid one’s writing as well. It also inspires this reader to pick up more of the many great books Wood refers to and become an even better reader.
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