The Art of Fiction Book

The articles which David Lodge wrote for "The Independent on Sunday" for 50 weeks in 1991 and 1992 have been revised and expanded for this book. The art of fiction is considered under a range of headings, such as "The Intrusive Author", "Suspense", "The Epistolary Novel", "Time-shift", "The Sense of Place" and "Symbolism". Each topic is illustrated by a short passage or two taken from classic and modern fiction, extending from Laurence Sterne to J.D. Salinger, from Jane Austen to Fay Weldon, from Charles Dickins to Martin Amis. Lodge takes these passages apart and puts them together again with the expertise of a novelist, critic and teacher. Technical terms, such as interior monologue, metafiction, intertextuality and the unreliable narrator, are explained and their application demonstrated, in the literary-critical equivalent of slow-motion action replays of some of the best writing in the English language. To throw further light on a given topic, the author sometimes refers directly to his own experience of writing fiction, which has twice seen him shortlisted for the Booker Prize.Read More