In this entertaining and enlightening collection David Lodge considers the art of fiction under a wide range of headings, drawing on writers as diverse as Henry James, Martin Amis, Jane Austen and James Joyce. Looking at ideas such as the Intrusive Author, Suspense, the Epistolary Novel, Magic Realism and Symbolism, and illustrating each topic with a passage taken from a classic or modern novel, David Lodge makes the richness and variety of British and American fiction accessible to the general reader.

He provides essential reading for students, aspiring writers and anyone who wants to understand how fiction works.

A collection of David Lodge's articles from the Independent on Sunday and the Washington Post

About the Author

David Lodge (CBE)'s novels include Changing Places, Small World and Nice Work (shortlisted for the Booker) and, most recently, A Man of Parts. He has also written plays and screenplays, and several books of literary criticism. His works have been translated into more than thirty languages.

He is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Birmingham, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and is a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Reviews
Exciting...a book for starting up trains of thought or discussion... It did make me think, as a writer, as a reader, as a teacher -- AS Byatt * Sunday Times *
Here is scholarship made human... There has been no better populist study of fiction since Forster's Aspects of the Novel * Financial Times *
It is wonderful to be clued in to some of the magic tricks of the trade; the point of view, the stream of consciousness, the use of names, the sense of place, time-shift and intertextuality * Los Angeles Times *
Lodge has the knack of wearing his scholarship lightly... One finds here precisely that expansive, humane wisdom which is so sorely lacking in much narrow-minded modern criticism.... He gets to the bottom of things, telling us why we read fiction....admirers will find in The Art of Fiction concentrated essence of Lodge * Guardian *
These essays are as fresh and as readable as ever -- David Evans * Independent *



Book Information
ISBN 9780099554240
Author David Lodge
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint Vintage
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 181g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 16mm