How Fiction WorksHow Fiction Works
1st ed.
Title rated 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 47 ratings(47 ratings)
Book, 2008
Current format, Book, 2008, 1st ed, Available .Book, 2008
Current format, Book, 2008, 1st ed, Available . Offered in 0 more formatsA book-length essay by the literary critic takes readers on a philosophical tour of the art of the novel, in a wide-ranging piece that explores such topics as the definition of style, the connection between realism and real life, and the qualities that make a story.
A book-length essay by the forefront literary critic takes readers on a philosophical tour of the art of the novel, in a wide-ranging piece that explores such topics as the definition of style, the connection between realism and real life, and the qualities that make a story. By the author of The Irresponsible Self.
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.
A book-length essay by the forefront literary critic takes readers on a philosophical tour of the art of the novel, in a wide-ranging piece that explores such topics as the definition of style, the connection between realism and real life, and the qualities that make a story. By the author of The Irresponsible Self.
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.
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- New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.
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