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, Faulkner, 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; the novel and the consolation of the truth; and the art of reading purely for the sake of enjoyment.

All true works of fiction have their scenes laid in the same country, and the events take place in the same climate: that country, that climate which we all long for and in our several ways strive to reach—the region where truth is eternal and man immortal and flowers never fade. (Caroline Gordon)

First published in 1953, How to Read a Novel is a stimulating yet leisurely tour through the development of fiction that offers a spirited account of the novel’s goal and the means of arriving there for writers and readers alike.

Paperback, 200 pages.