If any readers of the first edition of James Wood's How Fiction Works are wondering whether to check out the new(er) enlarged revision, I would tell them not to bother. The book has not been noticeably improved by revision. Wood has added a brief, forgettable chapter on 'form,' updated a few references and examples, dropped some passages that I thought interesting and valuable (a long footnote on character names, and the long pastiche of average 20th century English prose, for example), trendied-up other sections with examples from Knausgaard, Ali Smith, and the egregiously overrated David Shields, and toned-down (almost to the point of reversal) the first edition's criticism of David Foster Wallace. None of this greatly impressed me. In fact, I preferred Wood as a harsher critic of DFW, for that stance gave his genuine insights into Wallace's work a penetrating authority missing from his more fanboyish current position, which inevitably resembles bandwagon-jumping.
BTW, I read Wood's most recent novel, Upstate, last summer and found it entirely forgettable. Don't remember a damn thing about it.
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