|
|
Executive Times |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
2008 Book Reviews |
|||
|
|
How
Fiction Works by James Wood |
|||
|
Rating: |
*** |
|||
|
|
(Recommended) |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Compact James
Wood wastes not a single word in his new book, How
Fiction Works. The long time critic explores his bookshelves and comments
on what has developed in the novel form. While academics may find joy on
these pages, average readers will go on a journey led by the Wizard of Oz to
learn what’s behind the curtain. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of the
chapter titled, “A Brief History of Consciousness,” pp. 139-141: One reason that Cervantes needs
to have Don Quixote accompanied by Sancho Panza on his travels is that the
knight must have someone to talk to. When Don Quixote sends Sancho off to
search for Dulcinea, and is alone for the first extended period in the novel,
he does not think, as we would now understand the term. He speaks out
aloud, he soliloquizes. The
novel begins in the theater, and novelistic characterization begins when the
soliloquy goes inward. The soliloquy, in turn, has its origins in prayer, as
we can see from Greek tragedy, or from Book 5 of The Odyssey, or
from the Psalms, or from David's songs to the Lord in 1 and 2 Samuel. Shakespeare's
heroes and heroines still use soliloquy to invoke the gods, if not quite to
pray to them: "Come you spirits / That tend on -mortal thoughts, unsex
me here," "Blow, winds, and crack your
cheeks!" and so on. The actor comes to the front of the stage and speaks
his mind to an audience, who is both God above and we spectators in the
seats. Nineteenth-century novelists like Charlotte Bronte and Thomas Hardy
continued to describe their characters as "soliloquizing" when
speaking to themselves. The
novel has changed the art of characterization partly by changing who a
character is being seen by. Consider three men, each permanently affected
by a chance occurrence: King David in the Old Testament; Macbeth; and
Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. David, strolling on his roof,
sees Bathsheba, naked, sunning herself, and is instantly struck with lust.
His decision to take her as his lover and wife, and to kill her inconvenient
husband, sets in train a series of events that will lead to his downfall and
his punishment by God. Macbeth is instantly contaminated by the suggestion
of the three witches that he kill the king and take his mantle. He, too, is
punished—if not explicitly by God, then by "evenhanded justice,"
and by "pity, like a naked newborn babe." And Raskolnikov, in a
story clearly influenced by Shakespeare's play, is similarly polluted by an
idea—that by killing a miserable pawnbroker, he can vaunt himself over
ordinary morality like a Napoleon. He, too, must “accept his punishment,” as
Dostoevsky puts it, and be corrected by God. For
some readers, learning how the sausage is made may be disconcerting. For
others, it will bring joy. How
Fiction Works is a compact presentation that leaves plenty of time to get
back to reading novels when finished. Some readers will keep this handy and
refer to it while reading a novel, along the lines of, “What was it that Wood
said about voice?” Steve
Hopkins, October 20, 2008 |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
Go to Executive Times Archives |
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the November 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/How Fiction Works.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
