How Novels Work

Author(s): John Mullan

Reference

Never has contemporary fiction been more widely discussed and passionately analysed; recent years have seen a huge growth in the number of reading groups and in the interest of a non-academic readership in the discussion of how novels work. Drawing on his weekly Guardian column, 'Elements of Fiction', John Mullan examines novels mostly of the last ten years, many of which have become firm favourites with reading groups. He reveals the rich resources of novelistic technique, setting recent fiction alongside classics of the past. Nick Hornby's adoption of a female narrator is compared to Daniel Defoe's; Ian McEwan's use of weather is set against Austen's and Hardy's; Carole Shield's chapter divisions are likened to Fanny Burney's. Each section shows how some basic element of fiction is used. Some topics (like plot, dialogue, or location) will appear familiar to most novel readers; others (metanarrative, prolepsis, amplification) will open readers' eyes to new ways of understanding and appreciating the writer's craft. How Novels Work explains how the pleasures of novel reading often come from the formal ingenuity of the novelist.It is an entertaining and stimulating exploration of that ingenuity.


Product Information

It strikes me that none of our readers can afford to be without this book! I'm an admirer of John Mullan's 'Guardian' columns, and this is definately something that we should be reviewing. Edward Fenton. 'The Oxford Writer A brilliant crash course in contemporary fiction Waterstones Books Quarterly

John Mullan is Professor of English at University College London. He is the author of Sentiment and Sociability: The Language of Feeling in the Eighteenth Century and co-editor of Eighteenth-Century Popular Culture: An Anthology. A broadcaster and journalist as well as an academic, he writes a weekly column on contemporary fiction for the Guardian.

Introduction; 1. Beginning; 2. Narrating; 3. People; 4. Genre; 5. Voices; 6. Structure; 7. Detail; 8. Style; 9. Devices; 10. Literariness; 11. Ending

General Fields

  • : 9780199281787
  • : Oxford University Press
  • : Oxford University Press
  • : 0.273
  • : February 2008
  • : 196mm X 129mm X 24mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : John Mullan
  • : Paperback
  • : 4-Aug
  • : English
  • : 809.3
  • : 360