How Fiction Works
by James Wood
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Book Summary Information
Author: James WoodEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Deckle Edge
Published: 2009-07-21
ISBN: 0312428472
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Picador
Book Reviews of How Fiction Works
Book Review: Controversial but rewarding
Summary: 5 Stars
When I read books on fiction, I'm usually left with the suspicion that the author is like an art critic who, if handed a paintbrush and pushed toward a blank canvass, would suddenly complain about agonizing arthritis of the wrist or claim that the Muses haven't spoken to them yet that morning: they can yack all day about meaning and texture and color but despite the desire, these critics can't get much past a stick figure and criticize because they want to somehow attach themselves to the artistic process and bask in the reflected glow.
James Wood is not like this. He comes across as someone who writes about fiction, not because he can't write it himself, but because he just so damn excited about it. (Toward the beginning of what is to become an entire page on a sentence in Woolf: "I am consumed by this sentence, partly because I cannot quite explain why it moves me so much.") And he gets fiction. He asks the right questions and his answers generally create two reactions: (a) "I knew that but didn't know how to say it" or (b) "That's such an interesting way of looking about that. I'll have to think about that." I like, for instance, his views on perspective and his claim that a novel lives or dies by how well it explains itself, not by how it lives up to any set of standards.
That said, the book generates a lot of negative reviews. The reason, I suspect, is mostly a matter of social class, specifically literary cultural capital. Wood and people who like him are very much at the high end. You know the sort: they're on a first name basis with characters from Shakespeare, they're old friends with Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Stendal and Company, and they even claim to derive pleasure from reading Henry James. They would consider Oprah's approval an argument against reading a book, think Dan Brown painfully trite, wouldn't be caught dead reading a self-help book, etc. So when working class readers read Wood thinking it will help them write better fiction (that is, they read it in a utilitarian fashion but would never use the word `utilitarian'), they intuitively sense that Wood is not one of them, that he looks down on them. Such readers become indignant reviewers. To which Wood's defenders respond in the comments sections of their reviews with blistering smugness. At this point, things get awkward as the class divides within the US suddenly become very obvious.
I would argue, however, that even if drained of its attempts at socioeconomic distinction, the book has merit. (And of course, that I would begin a sentence using the verb `to argue' like I just did gives away that I'm also at the high end of literary cultural capital, though in truth my origins are sufficiently rural that I think anyone today who claims to enjoy reading James is kidding themselves.)
The specific arguments against Wood:
1. He's a snob. Yep, he's guilty on that score. Why only reference books you own? Why dig at Jesus? Yet, the obnoxious lines are but a tiny fraction of the text. Get rid of them and it's still essentially the same brilliant book. And sometimes his sense of humor, even if privileged, is dead on.
2. He writes in jargon. A few reviewers have pulled out a few sentences that are bad, but as one college-age reviewer pointed out, this is a lot better than most books of this ilk. Much of the prose is in fact elegant.
3. This isn't a book. This is actually two arguments. First, there isn't enough print on the page. I would say that the large margins, the retro design, the deckle edge --- these are not attempts to bamboozle unsuspecting online buyers to pay more for a thin book. Rather, these features make the book physically beautiful in an old-fashion way, which not everyone appreciates. They raise the price a little, but that just means it's a book to check out of the library. The second 'not a book' argument is that How Fiction Works doesn't have the proper structure it should have. That is, Wood's use of short aphorisms allows him to cheat on his obligation to make his subject coherent --- all I can really say is that those reviewers who make this criticism simply have a different set of expectations from what Wood hopes to fulfill. From his point of view, these micro-essays allow him to pack an enormous amount of insight into a small amount of space. He says what he needs to say and then immediately cuts off that thread, saving him from writing unnecessary transitions between ideas. It gives the book a distinct feel. Instead of being a marathon like most books, this is a series of sprints. I appreciated that in that it allowed readers to pick it up and put it down at will and to stop and digest what Wood was saying before moving on. I wouldn't want to read too many books written this way, but it is an interesting approach.
4. Wood is contemptuous of plot. If you read a lot of novels, you appreciate that except for the truly great books that create entirely new genres in their wake, most novels don't have that many plot innovations and it's the same thing over and over again, so you get into an attitude of `plots smots'. (Think about how many movies you don't see because you know, with tired certainty, the ending just by watching the trailer.) In this vein Wood is more interested in what clothes writers put on the skeletons of plots than on the plots themselves. This gets back to the last point: Wood doesn't worry about the big picture and focuses on details. This bothers some people, but details are the bricks out of which novels are made.
And while this was an expensive book, the paperback got remaindered, so it can be found cheaply if you poke around the web. (Indeed, until recently, it was only five dollars on Amazon, which bordered on theft.)
The best thing to say about this strange and exuberant book is to try it. It covers an enormous sweep of ideas on character, perspective, the limits of realism, etc. If you don't like it, if you gain no insight into fiction, then at a minimum you'll have a better sense of your own literary class position, however uncomfortable that understanding might be. Much more likely, you'll have a deeper appreciation of fiction.
Summary of How Fiction Works
In the tradition of E. M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel and Milan Kundera's The Art of the Novel, How Fiction Works is a scintillating study of the magic of fiction--an analysis of its main elements and a celebration of its lasting power. Here one of the most prominent and stylish critics of our time looks into the machinery of storytelling to ask some fundamental questions: What do we mean when we say we "know" a fictional character? What constitutes a telling detail? When is a metaphor successful? Is Realism realistic? Why do some literary conventions become dated while others stay fresh?
James Wood ranges widely, from Homer to Make Way for Ducklings, from the Bible to John le Carré, and his book is both a study of the techniques of fiction-making and an alternative history of the novel. Playful and profound, How Fiction Works will be enlightening to writers, readers, and anyone else interested in what happens on the page.
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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