How Fiction Works | 
 enlarge | Author: James Wood
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 2230
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0374173400
Dewey Decimal Number: 808.3
EAN: 9780374173401
ASIN: 0374173400
Publication Date: July 22, 2008
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Amazon.com Review
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
Product Description
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 Short, Clear, Stimulating, and Entertaining January 5, 2009
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The book reminds one of some of Virginia Woolf's readers. But the book is better thought out, shorter, and probably a bit more coherent than Woolf. Although saying that, Woolf's books are still outstanding reads and classics in their own way and this is not a negative comment on Woolf.
I have read the book three times and am still amused that he decides to attack amazon.com reviewers for their focus on character problems - justified or not - because amazon reviewers are far, far, below Wood in their literary sophistication.
The book is worth the price. He presents clear and impressive arguments along with historical discussions on the evolution of modern literature including Don Quixote, 1605, The King James version of the Bible, 1611, Robinson Crusoe, 1719; then, on to Fielding's Tom Jones, and the pivotal works of Diderot, Stendahl, Flaubert, and Dostoevsky. Each time I read the book I found a few gems.
As an example, I have read all of Saul Bellow's works but I gained some additional insight from his discussion of Bellow's background in poetry. There are numerous other examples including comments on Tolstoy.
Also, I liked his discussion on the evolution of the soliloquy in literature. Similarly, I enjoyed his comments on Henry James and Nabokov.
All in all it is great reading covering selected authors from Cervantes to John Updike. Wood motivates the reader to go back and look at a few old gems such as Henry James`s "What Maisie Knew."
I bought the hardcover version. The book is 250 pages long plus it has a list of interesting classics at the back. I highly recommend.
 Falsely advertised December 25, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
1. "Fiction" in the title should have been "Novels in the Classical Canon".
2. The author's "common reader" seems to be someone
- immersed in the Classical Canon, either currently or recently (Examples from books I had read years ago were not presented with enough context to be meaningful to me).
- with an advanced degree or equivalent in literature and literary criticism.
This book bears no resemblance to that portrayed in its advertisements, including those on the book itself. The front inside of the dust jacket states "...enlightening to writers, readers and anyone else interest in what happens on the page." The first quote on the back of the jacket states "... should delight and enlighten practicing novelists, would-be-novelists, and all passionate readers of fiction. -- The Economist"). However, the other three quotes should serve as warning of what the book is (literary criticism of the classics that is itself high literature and intended for aficionados of such works).
This disparity is at the core of--and justification for--the use of words such as "self-indulgent", "over-wrought", "pedantic", ... in various negative reviews here.
The author claims this book was inspired by earlier classics on writing fiction, but I see no relationship beyond the topic headings. It assumes that you already have firm grounding in fiction writing, and is probably inaccessible if you don't. If you do, it will add very little to what you already know. The typical treatment of an example makes an obvious point than then wanders round and round and round, adding nothing. Many of the discussions seem intended only to display the author's (unquestionable) erudition. This goes on long past being frustrating, past being irritating, to being aggravating.
The physical layout of the book is also a problem. The lines are only slightly longer than what you find in a typically newspaper (a quick sampling yielded counts of 42-54 characters). My (basic) training in layout was that such short lines divert effort to the physical act of reading, to the detriment of appreciating it.
About me: I am a scientist/engineer who writes extensively (promotional materials, advocacy, reports). I read advice on fiction writing because I long ago learned it provides some of the most relevant and important techniques for honing what I write, starting with structuring the material as a story greatly improves comprehension and retention.
 Helpful for the general reader November 28, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Points in this book's favor -
It's short, and very readable. In the introduction, Wood promises to be "mindful of the common reader" and to try to "reduce .. the scholastic stink to bearable levels". He does a commendable job of keeping his promise.
Wood's enthusiasm for reading is evident throughout, and is infectious. The strongest aspect of the book are the many specific examples that Wood provides of what works and doesn't work in fiction. Refreshingly, the ratio of positive to negative examples is high, so that we are treated to eloquence inspired by enthusiasm, rather than critical disregard, for the most part. His insights on Chekhov, Joyce, Nabokov (to name just a few) prompt me to go back and (re)read the work in question.
On the other hand:
Although I didn't find Wood's style overtly pompous, there is an inescapable sense that one is reading dispatches from what Walter Kirn, in his wicked New York Times review, refers to as "someone who has attained the detached, big-picture perspective of an orbiting critical satellite". In other words, a slightly offputting air of detached omniscience - that one is reading tablets handed down from the mountain.
Wood displays an enthusiasm for Flaubert (and, to a lesser extent, Henry James) that borders on burbling adulation. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, but when coupled with what appears to be a blanket dislike for almost everything even remotely postmodern, one begins to feel that Wood might be a helpful guide only for a certain subclass of fiction. David Foster Wallace, for example, gets dissed several times throughout the book, with little recognition of his considerable talent and influence. Of the 90 or so works referred to in the book, only 20 date from 1965 or later; 21st century fiction is clearly not where Wood's primary interest lies.
On balance, though, I very much enjoyed the book. Wood's discussion of such topics as narrative voice, effective characterization, use of detail, convincing dialog, and "realism" is generally clear and thought-provoking. For a middlebrow reader like me, this book is likely to be helpful.
A perfectly valid, and thoroughly amusing, view to the contrary is contained in Walter Kirn's New York Times review at the link below.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/books/review/Kirn-t.html
 Self Indulgent November 14, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
I first discovered this book while perusing the the lit-crit section of the local book store. Although my arms were full, I put down what I had and picked up 'How Fiction Works' and gave it a try.
A few moments later, I put the book down. Perhaps, I thought, it was because of my already-busy day, or the fact that I already had several books that I was more interested in reading. But I couldn't get into this book.
A few weeks later, I was back at the bookstore and decided to give it another try. Again, nothing.
Yesterday it was more of the same. Nothing about this book 'popped' for me. It was over-written and self-indulgent (a sign of which is surely the acclaim by the so-called literary community). It appears that this book was written for the sole purpose of being written. It does not, in any way, come close to the beauty and simplistic complexity of Forster's 'Aspects of the Novel.' (I realize that 'Aspects' was a series of lectures and 'How Fiction' is a book, but that should change very little.
This book is extremely impossible to grasp. Overwrought and confusing, 'How Fiction..' is successful only in that alienates itself from the reading public and certainly does not belong in the same discussion with 'Aspects of the Novel.'
Two Stars
Excellent October 22, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
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