The Fun Stuff and Other Essays - Hardcover

Wood, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224097113 ISBN 13: 9780224097116

Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd, 2013

Synopsis

Author of How Fiction Works

James Wood has long established himself as the leading critic of his generation. With The Fun Stuff, he confirms his preeminence not only as a discerning judge, but also as one of fiction's most ardent appreciators. In these twenty-three sparkling dispatches, Wood offers a panoramic look at the modern novel. He effortlessly connects his encyclopedic understanding of the literary canon―casting his eye upon such crucial writers as Thomas Hardy and Leo Tolstoy―with an equally in-depth analysis of the most important authors writing today, including Cormac McCarthy, Lydia Davis, and Aleksandar Hemon. From the brilliant title essay on Keith Moon and the lost joys of drumming to Wood's incisive piece on the writings of George Orwell, The Fun Stuff is indispensable reading for anyone who cares about contemporary literature.

About this title

About the Author:

James Wood is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He is the author of How Fiction Works, as well as two essay collections, The Broken Estate and The Irresponsible Self, and a novel, The Book Against God.

From Booklist:

What makes Wood such a forceful critic is the drilling down of his intelligence, the rigor of his close scrutiny, and the precision, luster, and thrust of his prose. The title essay in his third collection, a book of 23 sit-up-straight critiques, provides intriguing clues to the source of his expressive powers. One of his subjects is Keith Moon, the late, legendary drummer for The Who. Wood’s strategy to unlocking Moon’s “many-armed, joyous, semaphoring lunacy” involves describing his own “austerely Christian upbringing” and “traditional musical education, in a provincial English cathedral town,” and secret devotion to playing the drums. So when he writes that Moon’s drumming “is like an ideal sentence of prose,” we think, ah ha! And so we read to the propulsive beat of his assured and vivid dissections of the writings of George Orwell, Geoff Dyer, Ian McEwan, Cormac McCarthy, Aleksandar Hemon, and Marilynne Robinson. Of particular note is how, in his delving essay on fellow critic Edmund Wilson, Wood parses the tricky art of literary criticism, a form much enlivened by his purposeful flams, rolls, and paradiddles. --Donna Seaman

About this edition

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0224097113
• ISBN 13: 9780224097116
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352