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I have always liked to read books on literary theory - to know the gears and cogs that mesh and grind within the machine known as "literature". We all know that the written word immediately does not become literature; nor do most of the stories and poems we read. We also know that stories we really enjoy (most genre fiction, for example) do not really classify as literature - and stories which bore us to tears (many medieval works) and those which leave us totally befuddled (Finnegan's Wake immediately springs to mind) are, whatever be their faults, works of literature.

Terry Eagleton has written a slim handbook, refreshingly free of jargon, to help the novice through this confusion. In five chapters focussing on various aspects of the art of writing, he gives us an overview of how it all works.

In the first chapter, Eagleton talks about openings - the very first paragraph or sentence that pulls the reader into the narrative. The chapter, which kicks off with a discussion of A Passage to India, explores many famous openings (Pride and Prejudice, 1984, Macbeth etc.) and some not-so-famous ones. However, they all have something in common - they set the tone for the narrative, give a brief indication of what is to follow and almost inevitably makes the reader hungry to learn more about the fictional world the writer is creating. I could immediately think of a dozen openings which Eagleton has not specifically mentioned (One Hundred Years of Solitude, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Tale of Two Cities, Fahrenheit 451... to name a few).

Using the openings to show how the writer expertly weaves her sentences to create the effect she wants, the author moves into the second chapter - a study of character. This is more or less standard fare as Eagleton discusses various characters in their settings; how they merge with the context of the narrative. He also points out that a character may be more complex than the author makes him out to be. We need to learn to read between the lines.

In the third chapter, Eagleton analyses the effect of narrative, and also the point of view of the narrator (first person, third person)and how it affects the story as a whole. The "unreliable" first person narrator is analysed in depth. The structure of the narrative is entirely in the control of the author, and she may make any twists, turns or sideswipes to create the effect she desires. We have moved from the structured and linear prose of the realists and the romantics to the meanderings of modernism and postmodernism. (With the advent of works like Cloud Atlas and A Visit from the Goon Squad, one feels that the narrative has become the protagonist - however, these novels are not mentioned in the book, as they must have been published much later to it.)

The fourth chapter is on interpretation. This is understandably the longest, because it is the core of literary theory. Realist works are straightforward, while modernist works require interpretation (in my native tongue Malayalam, modernism has been ridiculed many a time because of the obscurantist nature of many of the works produced in its name). With a rather silly example of interpreting the poem "Baa, baa, black sheep" in highly original ways, Eagleton makes his point that just about any interpretation is not acceptable - you have to be true to the text which is written, and the context in which it is presented. It is true that interpretations will vary across space, time and culture (one example is the off-putting racism that Indians find in most colonial novels which are lauded as great works of literature): however, one cannot force one's meaning down the throat of a narrative. (To round off this chapter, the author gives a detailed interpretation of Great Expectations which is very enjoyable and which will help one read a novel critically).

The last chapter asks: what makes a work of literature good, bad or indifferent? It seems that we all instinctively know it, but it is very hard to define. For examples, while the realists believed in depicting the world as it is, the romantics believed in reshaping it while the modernists mostly negated it. For each of these schools, the yardstick of excellence may be different. However, even the most hardcore realist will not rank a John Grisham potboiler above Cloud Atlas, on the reason that it is more realistic: as Eagleton says: "The point is that there criteria for determining what counts as excellence in golf or fiction, as there are not for determining whether peaches taste better than pineapples." These criteria are laid out in books of literary criticism like this, and somewhat subjective. If one starts reading with a clear eye, one can learn to appreciate the nuances that raises a narrative from plain story to literature.

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This is a very light book, remarkably easy to read and appreciate: however, it does not contain much in-depth analysis (except for one or two cases). Also, Eagleton continuously tries to be funny, which strikes a jarring note, and was not required in a book of literary criticism.