In a series of long essays, James Wood examines the connection between literature and religious belief, in a startlingly wide group of writers. Wood re-appraises the writing of such figures as Thomas More, Jane Austen, Herman Melville, Anton Chekhov, Thomas Mann, Nikolai Gogol, Gustave Flaubert and Virginia Woolf, vigorously reading them against the grain of received opinion, and illuminatingly relating them to questions of religious and phiosophical belief. Contemporary writers, such as Martin Amis, Thomas Pynchon and George Steiner, are also discussed, with the boldness and attention to language that have made Wood such an influential and controversial figure. Writing here about his own childhood struggle to believe, Wood says that 'the child of evangelism, if he does t believe, inherits nevertheless a suspicion of indifference'. Wood brings that suspicion to bear on literature itself. The result is a unique book of criticism.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Vintage Publishing, Pimlico
ISBN-10
0712665579
ISBN-13
9780712665575
eBay Product ID (ePID)
96793841
Product Key Features
Author
James Wood
Format
Trade Paperback (Uk), Paperback
Language
English
Topic
Literary Criticism
Genre
Literary Criticism
Dimensions
Weight
363g
Height
216mm
Width
139mm
Additional Product Features
Place of Publication
London
Spine
25mm
Author Biography
JAMES WOOD is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a visiting lecturer at Harvard. In addition to How Fiction Works, he is the author of two essay collections, The Irresponsible Self and Fun Stuff and Other Essays, and a novel, The Book Against God.