How to Read a Novel

How to Read a Novel answers two key questions: “What is a novel?” and “How should it be read?” Moving effortlessly amongst authors and critics alike, Gordon considers moralism and improperly reading a novel; Dickens, Maritain, and the novel as an art form; complication and resolution in Sophocles and Beatrix Potter; Balzac, Flaubert, and scene composition; Thackeray, Tolstoy, and authorial viewpoint; Hemingway, Faulker, and narrative styles; the criticisms and the triumphs of Henry James; the challenge of accomplishing tone, style, and the central image; Fielding, Sartre, and the decline of the hero; fiction as the intersection of illusion and reality; and the novel and the consolation of the truth.First published in 1953, How to Read a Novel is a stimulating tour of the development of fiction and a spirited account of its goal and how writers and readers can be best situated to attain it.