HOW FICTION WORKS 1

James Wood’s How Fiction Works

Name

Institution
HOW FICTION WORKS 2

Response to James Wood’s How Fiction Works

Wood uses a structure that is quite ambitious in a bid to encapsulate the narrative of

western fiction in general. He presents a flexible essay with compact and aphoristic passages

thus allowing easy transition between literary history to personal whim (Huang, 2008, p.246).

In fact, some people have alluded that this novel appears preposterous because of the way

Wood’s book is written. ‘How Fiction Works’ is majorly based on Wood’s extensive

experience as a teacher as seen from how he presents comparisons between different genres.

This may be due to his obvious interest in promoting success rather than infinite deviations.

While we cannot deny the fact that the author is known for negative judgments, I am of the

opinion that he makes these conclusions not by misreading but by his success in

understanding authors’ terms and intentions (Cohen, 1993). This effectively teaches other

readers to see thing in the author’s perspective. However, his approach is quite unattractive

because it makes me view him less as an author and more as someone who trespasses on the

basis of criticism packaged as an agent of intelligence.

Another reason I don’t agree much with Wood is on the ideals of specificity and

realism he uses in fiction; ‘The This-ness of Life-ness.’ These terms present a degree of

vagueness in an otherwise more direct criticism. Actually, Wood applies them to imply that

life is whatever one wants it to be. However, it becomes hard to argue out such phrases when

use as basis for aesthetic because of their assumed obvious meanings and the dissenter is

made to appear like a cold postmodernist (Gladstone, 2011). Fortunately, most of the

surprises in this novel are acceptable especially in such a light-footed work. Besides, Wood’s

works are normally penned with high styles such that the comparative lack of decoration here

just defines him. His audiences are already used to his solid philosophical opinions on fiction

though he opted to display more of his roots in this particular work. After a long duration of
HOW FICTION WORKS 3

testing his ideas against critics’ instead of defending himself blindly, he seems to have taken

a particular view of fiction and is apparently at peace with it.

Some of the figures employed by Wood to direct the course of modern fiction are

Cervantes, Diderot, Flaubert and Dostovsky, a line-up that is certainly debatable because the

history of fiction is presented using individuals (Wood, 2008). Generally, his work on the

story of literature is interesting and articulate to contagious affection, something that has

earned him a simple victory which other authors have tried to attain with no avail. While he

implies what reading can do to an individual, the teachings can potentially train moral

complexity and sympathy though it is no mean feat. However, I think critics wouldn’t benefit

much from it because of the presentation opposing ideas that are unsympathetic hence the

more they see the more it would be irritating to them (Wood, 2008, p.246). This can

potentially divide audience into communities as Ted Cohen (1993) noted and some may be

narrow while others are broad depending on the impact of the work on the reader.

References

Cohen, T. (1993). High and low thinking about high and low art. The Journal of aesthetics

and art criticism, 51(2), 151-156.

Gladstone, J., & Worden, D. (2011). Introduction: postmodernism, then. Twentieth Century

Literature, 57(3/4), 291-308.

Huang, L. (2008). Harvard Review, (35), 246-250. Retrieved November 27, 2020, from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40347519

Wood, J. (2008). How fiction works. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.