The Art of Fiction - Hardcover

Lodge, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0436256711 ISBN 13: 9780436256714

Publisher: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, 1992

Synopsis

The articles with which David Lodge entertained and enlightened readers of the Independent on Sunday for fifty weeks between 1991 and 1992 he has now revised, expanded and collected together in book form. The art of fiction is considered under a wide range of headings, such as the Intrusive Author, Suspense, the Epistolary Novel, Time-shift, the Sense of Place, and Symbolism. Each topic is illustrated by a short passage or two taken from classic and modern fiction, extending from Laurence Sterne to J.D. Salinger, from Jane Austen to Fay Weldon, from Charles Dickens to Martin Amis. David Lodge takes these passages apart and puts them together again with the expertise of a novelist, critic and teacher. Technical terms and lucidly explained and their application examined, in the literary-critical equivalent of slow-motion action replays of some of the best writing in the English language. To throw further light on a given topic the author sometimes refers directly, and revealingly, to his own experience of writing fiction. This book is essential reading for students of literature, aspiring writers, and anyone who enjoys literary fiction and would like to understand better how it works.

About this title

Review:

"Exciting...a book for starting up trains of thought or discussion... It did make me think, as a writer, as a reader, as a teacher" (AS Byatt Sunday Times)

"Here is scholarship made human... There has been no better populist study of fiction since Forster's Aspects of the Novel" (Financial Times)

"It is wonderful to be clued in to some of the magic tricks of the trade; the point of view, the stream of consciousness, the use of names, the sense of place, time-shift and intertextuality" (Los Angeles Times)

"Lodge has the knack of wearing his scholarship lightly... One finds here precisely that expansive, humane wisdom which is so sorely lacking in much narrow-minded modern criticism.... He gets to the bottom of things, telling us why we read fiction....admirers will find in The Art of Fiction concentrated essence of Lodge" (Guardian)

"These essays are as fresh and as readable as ever" (David Evans Independent)

Book Description:

A collection of David Lodge's articles from the Independent on Sunday and the Washington Post

About this edition

• Publisher: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0436256711
• ISBN 13: 9780436256714
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224