Is realism real?
How do we define a successful metaphor?
What is a character?
When do we recognise a brilliant use of detail in fiction?
What is point of view, and how does it work?
What is imaginative sympathy?
Why does fiction move us?
These are the questions which James Wood, by his own
account, has treated here. God knows they can lead to much yawning in a classroom, but James Wood is…mehrIs realism real?
How do we define a successful metaphor?
What is a character?
When do we recognise a brilliant use of detail in fiction?
What is point of view, and how does it work?
What is imaginative sympathy?
Why does fiction move us?
These are the questions which James Wood, by his own account, has treated here. God knows they can lead to much yawning in a classroom, but James Wood is not only a prominent critic, but also a wonderfully gifted writer. As he goes on about unreliable narrators, free indirect speech, dramatic irony and the like in his amiable, detached, conversational manner he keeps you wondering how some of his lesser colleagues can manage to make literary criticism seem so arduous.
The books index refers to about two hundred famous classics appearing in its 194 pages, and you would have to know perhaps not all, but most of them to gain full profit of this very practical manner of criticism. And then at last you will know why books attract you so.
