I got about halfway through this before I realized I'd rather actually be reading fiction. No offense, Mr. Wood. You seem pretty smart. ( )

advice from first-rate critic

I'm of two minds on this book. On the one hand I can't remember what recommendation caused me to read it. And if all I'd had was the second half of the book as an example, I probably wouldn't have bothered. It rambles and jumps around so much.

On the other hand, the first sections, covering narrative and viewpoint, illuminated perspectives on writing that came as revelations to me as from on high. I simply have not previously approached fiction from that philosophical direction.

The author seems to be of two minds as well, trying to have his cake and eat it, too, philosophically. He seems to be simultaneously trying to appeal to the common reader and to the highly educated sophisticate. At times he succeeds. At others, he seems simply irksome. Like one of those know-it-all semi-intellectuals that are impossible to shut up once they commence to educate you about some subject.

Then again, perhaps it was just me, the reader, becoming impatient. If I decide I have a need to make time for this book again, perhaps I will revisit it and see if it is even more illuminating (or more irksome) the second time. ( )

This is one of the best works of literary criticism that I have ever read. Using lucid prose Wood provides useful explanations of fictional style on almost every page. His insights are illuminating and lead me to return again and again to savor his genius. ( )

Hiding behind the dreadfully self-helpish title of this little book(*) is a thoughtful examination of the main elements of prose fiction, explicitly cast as a 21st century reworking of E.M. Forster's famous lecture-course Aspects of the novel. Wood looks at the usual suspects — style, form, dialogue, characters, and so on — and gives us a quick resumé of where the big names of world literature stand on those points and how (selected) contemporary writers are dealing with them. Wood evidently isn't setting out to be either polemical or prescriptive, he seems to feel that the writers he appreciates most are those who work within a given framework whilst pushing out its boundaries, rather than those who slavishly adhere either to past convention or to new theoretical doctrines. The great writer is one who does something unexpected, that no-one else would have done at that point, but that with hindsight is the obvious right thing to do.

I don't think this is likely to be a very useful book for someone setting out to be a creative writer, especially if you want to write genre fiction, a topic that is clearly of no interest to Wood. But it would be an excellent preparation for a reader setting out to (re-)read Flaubert, Tolstoy, or Henry James.

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(*) Wood jokingly comments that he really wanted to call it He knew he was right ( )