by James Wood
Will in the World (Greenblatt)
Wilson, Angus
Wilson, Edmund
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
Wittgenstein, Paul
Wittgenstein’s Nephew (Bernhard)
Woolf, Leonard
Woolf, Virginia
Dostoevsky’s influence on
on form
language of
on realism
suicide of
Wordsworth, William
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (Saramago)
Yeats, William Butler
Zambra, Alejandro
ALSO BY JAMES WOOD
ESSAYS
The Fun Stuff and Other Essays
The Nearest Thing to Life
The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel
The Broken Estate: Essays on Literature and Belief
FICTION
The Book Against God
Upstate
Additional Praise for How Fiction Works
An Economist Best Book of the Year
A Kansas City Star Best Book of the Year
A Library Journal Best Book of the Year
A San Francisco Chronicle Top 50 Best
Nonfiction Book of the Year
“An articulate reminder of the framework that is essential to constructing a lasting work of the imagination.”
—The Miami Herald
“Wood’s arranging of source material to prove his points is as fluid and lovely as any great composer’s arrangement of musical notes, and, if nothing else, How Fiction Works will inspire you to simply read more.… [A] lovely, eloquent ode to reading.”
—The Oregonian
“This admirable book is, among other things, a successful attempt to replace E. M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel as an accessible guide to the mechanics of fiction. Without losing sight of its promise to address the common reader rather than the specialist, How Fiction Works is much more sophisticated than Forster’s book.… Wood has thought keenly and profitably about such matters. He also benefits, as Forster did not, from wide reading in contemporary fiction.”
—Frank Kermode, The New Republic
“A perceptive and graceful essay, which almost anybody who’s interested in books could read.… Well worth reading.”
—The Sunday Independent (UK)
“Highly stimulating stuff—if it doesn’t make you hug your bookcase gratefully, you’re probably an incorrigible ‘formalist-cum-structuralist.’”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Through Wood’s close, mostly loving, frequently funny, occasionally dizzying examination, our reading experience is amplified and enriched.… Wood’s wit and occasional hilarious commentary are well timed and sizzlingly accurate.”
—Virginia Quarterly Review
“By examining the minutiae of character, narrative, and style in a range of fictional works that starts with the Bible and ends with Coetzee and Pynchon, he fondly and delicately pieces back together what the deconstructors put asunder.”
—The Guardian (UK)
“Serious readers of fiction will tackle this informing and enlightening new work with unrestrained relish.”
—Library Journal
About the Author
James Wood is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He is the author of How Fiction Works, as well as two essay collections, The Broken Estate and The Irresponsible Self, and a novel, The Book Against God. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Preface to the Tenth Anniversary Edition
Narrating
Flaubert and Modern Narrative
Flaubert and the Rise of the Flaneur
Detail
Character
A Brief History of Consciousness
Form
Sympathy and Complexity
Language
Dialogue
Truth, Convention, Realism
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Also by James Wood
Additional Praise for How Fiction Works
About the Author
Copyright
HOW FICTION WORKS. Copyright © 2008, 2018 by James Wood. All rights reserved. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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Picador® is a U.S. registered trademark and is used by Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC, under license from Pan Books Limited.
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the previous Picador edition as follows:
Wood, James, 1965–
How fiction works / James Wood. — 1st Picador ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 978-0-312-42847-1 (trade paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-4299-0865-8 (ebook)
1. Fiction—Authorship. 2. Fiction—Technique. 3. Fiction—History and Criticism. I. Title.
PN3355.W66 2009
808.3—dc22
2009001786
Picador Paperback ISBN 978-1-250-18392-7
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First published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
First Picador Edition: August 2009
Second Picador Edition: August 2018
eISBN 9781429908658
