Review: The Fun Stuff by James Wood

I found, How Fiction Works, by James Wood, my first introduction to the author, to be kind of obnoxious. Fiction does not "work" by using one particular style. Fiction has not always been extant in the novel form, nor is it likely it will remain that way. It functions just as well as realistic tales, fabulist stories, or reportage and travel writing, mixed with essays. If nothing else, the book can act as a good reading list, Norman Rush's books, Mating and Mortals, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, Calvino's Cosmicomis, Henry James' Portrait of a Lady, Lydia Davis short stories, Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners.  Of course, I made up the majority of that list. 

However, this book, despite the obsession with the free indirect style, is quite good. When he skewers an author, as he does with Paul Auster, he has some good pull quotes from Auster to prove the point that he's just not a particularly good writer. While I have a disagreement with Woods over his assessment of the writing of David Foster Wallace, by and large, his assessments seem fair, rigorous, and readable. I realize the latter point, actually being able to read someone writing about literature became anathema to literary people about the time that structuralism and post-structuralism began to hold sway in university settings. After that, people stopped reading books and began "reading" them, for power structures, signs or, more accurately, confirmations of what they are looking for. This type of reading is not particularly interesting to people outside of the academy, and, quite frankly, not really for people who enjoy books. In that regard, I'm happy that Wood is so popular. I suspect that he might actually like books.