James Wood June 25, 2008

In the tradition of E. M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel and Milan Kundera’s The Art of the Novel, Woods’ How Fiction Works (Cape) is a searching study of the main elements of fiction, such as narrative, detail, characterisation, dialogue, realism, and style. How can we ‘know’ a fictional character? What constitutes a ‘telling’ detail? When is a metaphor successful? Why do most endings of novels disappoint?

Ranging widely from Homer to John Le Carré, the book is both a study of the techniques of fiction-making and an alternative history of the novel. James Wood is a staff writer at The New Yorker and Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard.

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