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“How Fiction Works�� is a book that can literally change the way you read. It is insightful, brilliantly written, and fun. Literary criticism attracts some real blowhards, and much of the antipathy directed towards the field is justified. But reading a book like this one you can appreciate that criticism that comes from pure bibliophilia has a role to play in enhancing our understanding of what we read. Wood raises some questions that seem so obvious that I had never given them the attention they deserved: what is a “character��? What is “style��? How can fiction, which by definition is not “real��, convey truth?

In the first chapter Wood jumps right into a discussion of Flaubert's influence on realist style, which has influenced practically every novel written since the 1850's. Flaubert describes details that are “important because they have been noticed by him and put down on paper, and unimportant because they are all jumbled together, seen as if out of the corner of the eye; they seem to come at us 'like life'��. In other words, ever since Flaubert mastered this technique, authors carefully select details in a similar way to how we perceive real life. What an amazing insight Flaubert had into a human being's limited and inconsistent attentional capacity! Wood then discusses different opinions and approaches to realist style. Despite the authoritative (and maybe even a bit presumptuous) title, Wood rarely tells us what makes fiction good or bad; rather, he talks about complexity, beauty, and only occasionally his personal preference. After reading this chapter, I've started to notice more when I read novels.

The discussion on style is followed by similar analyses of consciousness, character, language, and dialogue. Each of these chapters contains innumerable jewels. One that stuck out for me in particular was this paragraph from a section on “flat�� (one-dimensional) and “round�� (multi-faceted) characters:

“There are pleasures to be had from [a book with flat characters:], and there are passages of great beauty, but, as in farce, the cost to final seriousness is considerable: everyone is ultimately protected from real menace because no one really exists. The Nazi Captain Blicero in Gravity's Rainbow or �� Scarsdale Vibe in Against the Day are not truly frightening figures, because they are not true figures. But Gilbert Osmond, Herr Naphta, Peter Verkhovensky, and Conrad's anarchist professor are very frightening indeed.��

Wow. In “Magic Mountain��, Mann perfectly rounds out the character of Naphta in a few short sentences when, upon the death of another character, he uses the occasion to take a rhetorical jab at his intellectual adversary Settembrini. In that moment, lasting four sentences at most, Naphta is revealed for how nasty he really is. Even though I had noticed this when I read the scene in “Magic Mountain��, until I read “How Fiction Works�� it didn't really register just how masterfully Mann had defined his character in this simple scene.

Not content to just describe the techniques used by fiction authors, Wood employs them himself on occasion to great effect. For example, in the chapter on language he shows how the reader's perception of a scene can be manipulated by the author changing the “register�� of the prose (high, intelligent, even pompous versus low, vulgar, uncultured) within a single section of text. After quoting a sex scene from “Sabbath's Theater�� by Phillip Roth, which itself was filled with shockingly contrasting intellectual and vulgar language, Wood's careful exegesis of the passage is littered with casual use of the words “fuck��, “cunt��, and “tits��. The effect drives home his point far better than if he had maintained the high register that makes up the rest of the book.

As much as I loved this book, I will readily admit that it is not for everyone. A reader who is not reasonably familiar with the Western Canon might have some trouble following Wood's numerous references to characters and novels. I can't fault Wood for giving his readers so much credit, but I could certainly understand a reader getting frustrated if they can't at least recognize characters like Humbert Humbert, Marlow, Leopold Bloom, or Raskolnikov. But then, if you're reading a book like this you've probably read a good number of the classics (and don't mind hearing about those that you haven't yet read).

I could go on and on about the great insights that fill this book. What matters most, and what makes this such a great book, is that ever page is filled with Wood's love of reading fiction. Over and over again he marvels like a child at how beautiful a certain passage is, or how well an author has developed a certain character. There's also a hilarious and totally unexpected footnote where he talks about being “addicted to the foolish pastime of amassing instances in which minor characters in books happen to have the names of writers��. Does this guy love books, or what? If you think that lit-crit is nothing but intellectual masturbation and post-modern problematizing, this book might restore your faith in the English department. If only all literary critics conveyed the same enthusiasm for their subject as Wood does.