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At first glance, this is a straightforward book. Written by a clear-thinking critic in pellucid prose, it is entitled How to Read Literature and consists of five chapters headed “Openings,�� “Character,�� “Narrative,�� Interpretations,�� and “Value.�� Tell me, what could be more straightforward than this? Yet, when I attempt to summarize its thesis and articulate its worth, I find it difficult to begin.

When in doubt, I suppose one should begin with beginnings, so let's start with the first opening discussed in “Openings,�� our book's first chapter. Eagleton quotes the first one hundred words of Forster's A Passage to India, and then gets down to business showing what those words are doing, what they are not doing, what effects they achieve and how they achieve them.

"Except for the Marabar Caves—and they are twenty miles off—the city of Chandrapore presents nothing extraordinary. Edged rather than washed by the river Ganges, it trails for a couple of miles along the bank, scarcely distinguishable from the rubbish it deposits so freely. There are no bathing steps on the river front, as the Ganges happens not to be holy here; indeed, there is no river front, and bazaars shut out the wide and shifting panorama of the stream. The streets are mean, the temples ineffective, and though a few fine houses exist they are hidden away in gardens or down alleys whose filth deters all but the invited guest . . ."

Eagleton tells us that openings are often bravura set pieces, that the apparent casualness of these first words may be bravura even in their casualness--an indirectness particularly characteristic of upper middle-class English writers like Forster. He mentions the rhythmic structure of the prose, the “elegant�� and “deft�� syntax, and yet makes it clear that this is not “fine writing�� or “purple prose.�� He shows us how the first sentence slightly postpones a mention of the city in order to heighten reader interest, and then tells us that the city is not “extraordinary,�� except for the caves (which are not the city), that there is not even a river front on the river front, and that the temples are “ineffective�� (presumably at arousing the architectural or ethnographic interest of the Western tourist). He cautions that the narrator should not necessarily be identified with the author Forster, and that—whoever he is—he has some prior knowledge of India and that he--or both of them--may be self-consciously adopting a jaded, ironic tone. At any rate, this passage sustains the readers interest in what is not described: the Caves.

Thus, in a couple of pages, Eagleton brings his full literary intelligence to the analysis of this short passage: he discusses the customary nature of literary openings, the effects of indirection (and its possible cultural origins), the importance of music and elegance in rhythm and syntax, word order as a determiner of reader expectations, the construction of narrative persona, the importance of not equating this persona with the author, and the importance of the narrator's perspective and tone.

This is Eagleton's approach throughout the book. He isolates a passage or a single aspect of a work—mostly fiction, but sometimes poetry too—and subjects it to a wide range of perspectives and literary tools in order to reveal the heart of its meaning. He is interested in modeling a process in miniature, not articulating a thesis. He shows the beginning reader—who is, after all, each of us--what can happen when an educated, sympathetic intelligence uses its resources to illuminate a given work, tempering creativity with knowledge, harnessing enthusiasm with judgment.

Although the book is organized into clearly demarcated chapters, this linear organization is deceptive. Terry Eagleton knows that evoking the mute mystery at the heart of any literary work requires—above all--an ever-alert, mobile intelligence. In the words of his countryman, William Butler Yeats: “Like a long-legged fly upon the stream/His mind moves upon silence.��