How Fiction Works : Book

This Hardcover Book item from Farrar, Straus and Giroux was reviewed on 8-Oct-2008.

Search ISBN:0374173400 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. How Fiction Works Reference Book. Classifications : General AAS Literature Humanities New & Used Textbooks Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books General AAS New & Used Textbooks Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books General AAS Qualifying Textbooks Custo . Click the following link to view the cover of How Fiction Works.

1) Hardcover Book How Fiction Works by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. James Wood is one of the clearest, and most insightful of contemporary literature critics. This little volume is an extraordinary little to guide to creative writing from an obviously well read author. Wood privileges the modern realism of Flaubert and Tolstoy over more avant-garde approaches to literature. But nevertheless he is more than balanced in assessing the various perspectives on voice, detail, and character. He often emphasizes the importance of the inner tension between the voice of the author and the voice of the character, and assesses various authors in their successes (Joyce), and failures (Updike) with this perennial question. This is a truly intelligent and well written literary guide.¤

2) Hardcover Book How Fiction Works by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Breathtaking exposition on the development of the novel over the last few centuries, in particular the "realist" style. Brilliant non-fiction gem about fiction. Opinionated rather than encyclopedic, but a great touchstone for further reading.

The design of the book is particularly inviting--its modest weight, friendly typeface, and wide margins make this book a pleasant evening companion--a book you aren´t afraid to ask out on a second date. I plan to re-read it once or twice if I ever get it back.

Bracing, memorable writing. If you want to add another dimension to your appreciation of the novel, this gorgeously edited book is ideal. If, like me, you are a writer of non-fiction, this book is a model.

If, on the other hand, you want cheerleading or technical tips for writing a novel--if you want reinforcement of your personal idea of what´s Good in fiction--this book may not be right for you.¤

3) Hardcover Book How Fiction Works by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. I am enjoying this book, but am not enough of a scholar to give a serious or creditable evaluation. Wood talks about the author´s aesthetic distance, and wonders if such a thing is even possible, because all the voices of narration are ultimately the author´s voice, and all characters are ultimately aspects of the author as well. He devotes some pages to characters that are either flat, caricatures, or rounded and full. He cites many writers to illustrate, which I enjoy.I haven´t finished the book, but I would recommend it to anyone who loves fiction and wants a deeper understanding of the elements that make it either work or not.¤

4) Hardcover Book How Fiction Works by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. I had hoped to learn from this book how to read and write fiction better. This is not a good reason to read this book. I learned little. The book is a defense of common literary realism against the attacks of avant garde experimentalists. Wood defends it by interpreting examples drawn from classic traditional novels (Flaubert, Tolstoy,... Bellow, Updike). I found his examples well chosen and expertly interpreted, but if you already understand that good writing involves narration, telling details, vivid characters, sympathy for characters different from you, language that is powerful, economical, and musical, and that literature should give delight as well as truth, you won´t learn much. You´ll find some great illustrations of writers accomplishing these things well, but if you read fiction, you´ll already have your own examples.¤

5) Hardcover Book How Fiction Works by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. I bought this book because I am in the process of writing a novel and thought it might be helpful. Uh. Wrooong. Here is my favorite sentence in the 86 pages I managed to get through: "Anyway, one can accept Barthes´s stylistic proviso without accepting his epistemological caveat: fictinal reality is indeed made up of such ´effect,´ but realism can be an effect and still be true." This guy (near as I was able to ascertain) was writing about using detail to show the passage of time. He attributes deep, meaningful significance to the rat-a-tat scatty groove a writer falls into while creating a sense of place and time. Why the writer said the clock faced the fireplace has almost zero meaning to the writer, but to James Wood, it is profound. No fledgling author can benefit from being coached to step back from the process, which is what Mr. Wood´s book attempts to do.

I am closing this book forever at page 86 because it hasn´t taught me a single thing. It hasn´t opened my eyes in any way. And it certainly has no relationship to the writing process. This is a book on how to be a critic. I live in San Diego. We have a local paper called the Reader. The Reader has a film critic who is so obscure and sneeringly condescending that nobody reads his reviews except to see in what way he ripped apart a favorite film. James Wood´s book reads like one of the film critic´s columns from the Reader: Remote and disconnected from the topic. Plus, this book is genuinely archaic in both it´s style and it´s orientation to the medium. If you buy it to learn how to write you will waste your money. Buy Bird by Bird by Anne Lamontt instead. I gave this book one star because they wouldn´t let me give it less. NOTE: This the only review I have ever been motivated to write.¤

What makes a story a story? What is style? What’s the connection between realism and real life? These are some of the questions James Wood answers in How Fiction Works, the first book-length essay by the preeminent critic of his generation. Ranging widely—from Homer to David Foster Wallace, from What Maisie Knew to Make Way for Ducklings—Wood takes the reader through the basic elements of the art, step by step.

The result is nothing less than a philosophy of the novel—plainspoken, funny, blunt—in the traditions of E. M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. It sums up two decades of insight with wit and concision. It will change the way you read.

7) Hardcover Book How Fiction Works by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Amazon Best of the Month, July 2008: The first thing you´ll notice about How Fiction Works is its size. At 252 pages, it´s a marvel of economy for a book that asks such a huge question and right away you´ll want to know (as you might at the start of a new novel) what the author has in store. James Wood takes only his own bookshelves as his literary terrain for this study, and that in itself is the most delightful gift: he joins his audience as a reader, citing his chosen texts judiciously--ranging from Henry James (from whom he takes the best epigraph to a book I´ve ever read) to Nabokov, Joyce, Updike, and more--to explore not just how fiction works, mechanically speaking, but to reflect on how a novelist´s choices make us feel that a novel ultimately works ... or doesn´t. Wood remarks that you have to "read enough literature to be taught by it how to read it." His terrific bibliography will surely be a boon to anyone´s education, but it´s his masterful writing that you´ll want to keep reading over the course of your life. --Anne Bartholomew

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How Fiction Works

Author - James Wood ... [Goo?] [Posters]

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