How to Read a Novel: A User's Guide

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Year: 2007
• Leaves: 275
• Edition: 1st
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

"Do we still know how to read a novel?" John Sutherland, Chairman of the 2005 Booker Prize Committee, asks. His answer is an unequivocal, "No." But Sutherland has not given up hope. With acerbic wit and intellect, he traces the history of what it used to mean to be well-read and tells readers what it still means today while reminding readers how the delicate charms of fiction can be at once wonderful and inspired and infuriating. On one level this is a book about novels but at a deeper level, this is a book in which one of the most intimate t?te-?-t?tes is described--one in which a reader meets a novel. However, in order for the relationship to take its proper course, a reader must know how to read it! Sutherland helps readers:--Pick the right book for them among the cattle call of pre-packaged blurbs and enticing cover art--Recognize a misleading title at first glance--Look beyond the politics of book reviewers--Learn to read the extras--epigraphs, forewords, afterwords--to understand themes only hinted at in the main text--Find real aspects of the author cleverly hidden in the narrative structure--And much more In a book that is as wry and humorous as it is learned and opinionated, John Sutherland tells you everything you always wanted to know about how to read fiction better than you do now (but, were afraid to ask).

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Copyright page......Page 8
Contents......Page 9
1 So many novels, so little time......Page 13
2 Declarations of independence......Page 26
3 Every other thing has changed: why hasn't the book changed?......Page 39
The future of fiction is in your hand......Page 43
4 Fiction – a four-minute history......Page 55
The dust jacket is not just for dust......Page 62
6 Preliminaries I......Page 68
Know your taste......Page 71
Postscript: can you browse electronically?......Page 74
7 Closing in......Page 75
8 Preliminaries II......Page 93
9 Titles......Page 97
Answers......Page 116
10 Names......Page 117
11 Worth a thousand words......Page 122
12 Famous first words......Page 125
13 Epigraphs, forewords and afterwords......Page 130
14 Read one, you've read them all: intertextuality......Page 135
15 On the rack: know your genre......Page 143
16 Getting physical......Page 156
17 See as well as read......Page 162
18 Hardback or paperback?......Page 167
Price......Page 172
19 What do you do with the novel? read it, listen to it, look at it?......Page 174
20 Real world, fictional world – same world?......Page 182
21 When worlds collide......Page 193
22 Fiction – where the unspeakable can be spoken......Page 204
23 I'm a Martian: will I understand Pride and Prejudice?......Page 211
24 Can reviews help?......Page 225
Postscript......Page 231
25 Bestsellers......Page 232
26 The prize novel......Page 237
27 Book of the film? Film of the book?......Page 241
28 After all is said and done, what use are they?......Page 250
Afterword......Page 256
Notes......Page 259
List of illustrations......Page 263
1 Still from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, (The Moviestore Collection, London)......Page 21
2 Cover of Atomised (2001) Michel Houellebecq (Virago, London)......Page 63
3 Cover of Women in Love (1959) D. H. Lawrence (Ace Books, London)......Page 65
4 Cover of Jake's Thing (1978) Kingsley Amis (Hutchinson, London)......Page 66
5 Copyright page, Lady Chatterley's Lover (1994) D. H. Lawrence (Penguin, London)......Page 78
6 Cover of Mrs Dalloway (1997) Virginia Woolf (Harvest Books, New York)......Page 86
7 Still from Pride and Prejudice, (The Moviestore Collection, London)......Page 89
8 Cover of I Take This Woman (1934) Charlotte Brontë (Novel Library, London)......Page 90
9 Title page of Robinson Crusoe (1719) Daniel Defoe (W. Taylor)......Page 110
10 Facsimile wrapper of William Thackeray's Vanity Fair (June 1847, Bradbury and Evans, London)......Page 113
11 Author photos (a) Charles Dickens (b) Raymond Chandler (c) Arundhati Roy......Page 123
12 Author photos (a) E. Phillips Oppenheim (b) Ian Fleming......Page 124
13 Marginalia from Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (1981, repr. 2004, Penguin Books, New York)......Page 159
14 Cover and page from Summer Crossing (2006) Truman Capote (Penguin, London)......Page 165
15 Cover of City of Spades (1962) Colin MacInnes (Four Square Book paperback)......Page 205
16 Cover of Saturday (2006) Ian McEwan (Vintage, London)......Page 217
Acknowledgments......Page 265
A......Page 266
C......Page 267
D......Page 268
G......Page 269
J......Page 270
M......Page 271
P......Page 272
S......Page 273
V......Page 274
Y......Page 275