Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

The Nearest Thing to Life

3.9/5 ( ratings)

In this remarkable blend of memoir and criticism, James Wood has written a master class on the connections between fiction and life. He argues that, of all the arts, fiction has a unique ability to describe the shape of our lives, and to rescue the texture of those lives from death and historical oblivion. The act of reading is understood here as the most sacred and personal of activities, and there are brilliant discussions of individual works – among others, Chekhov’s story ‘The Kiss’, W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants, and Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower.

Wood reveals his own intimate relationship with the written word: we see the development of a provincial boy growing up in a charged Christian environment, the secret joy of his childhood reading, the links he makes between reading and blasphemy, or between literature and music. The final section discusses fiction in the context of exile and homelessness. The Nearest Thing to Life is not simply a brief, tightly argued book by a man commonly regarded as our finest living critic – it is also an exhilarating personal account that reflects on, and embodies, the fruitful conspiracy between reader and writer , and asks us to re-consider everything that is at stake when we read and write fiction.

Language: English

Pages: 134

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Brandeis University Press

Release: April 28, 2015

ISBN: 161168742X

ISBN 13: 9781611687422

The Nearest Thing to Life

3.9/5 ( ratings)

In this remarkable blend of memoir and criticism, James Wood has written a master class on the connections between fiction and life. He argues that, of all the arts, fiction has a unique ability to describe the shape of our lives, and to rescue the texture of those lives from death and historical oblivion. The act of reading is understood here as the most sacred and personal of activities, and there are brilliant discussions of individual works – among others, Chekhov’s story ‘The Kiss’, W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants, and Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower.

Wood reveals his own intimate relationship with the written word: we see the development of a provincial boy growing up in a charged Christian environment, the secret joy of his childhood reading, the links he makes between reading and blasphemy, or between literature and music. The final section discusses fiction in the context of exile and homelessness. The Nearest Thing to Life is not simply a brief, tightly argued book by a man commonly regarded as our finest living critic – it is also an exhilarating personal account that reflects on, and embodies, the fruitful conspiracy between reader and writer , and asks us to re-consider everything that is at stake when we read and write fiction.

Language: English

Pages: 134

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Brandeis University Press

Release: April 28, 2015

ISBN: 161168742X

ISBN 13: 9781611687422

More books from James Wood

The Myth of Sisyphus

4.2/5 ( ratings)

How Fiction Works

The Golovlyov Family

Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager

Upstate

3.3/5 ( ratings)

The Fun Stuff: And Other Essays

3.8/5 ( ratings)

The Broken Estate: Essays on Literature and Belief

4.1/5 ( ratings)

The Book Against God

3.1/5 ( ratings)

The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Novels 1956–1964: Seize the Day / Henderson the Rain King / Herzog

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Serious Noticing: Selected Essays, 1997-2019

4.4/5 ( ratings)

Upstate

3.6/5 ( ratings)

Stories from Greek Mythology (Illustrated)

3.3/5 ( ratings)

Collected Stories

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Circuits & Slippers

4.4/5 ( ratings)

Difficult Death: The Life and Work of Jens Peter Jacobsen

4.4/5 ( ratings)

Ploughshares Summer 2016 Guest-Edited by Claire Messud & James Wood

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Tomato Container Gardening: How to Grow Tomatoes in Small Spaces

3.7/5 ( ratings)

EAT, HEAL & BE MERRY: Stories of People Who Healed The All-Natural Way

Woodworking : Easy Projects Perfect For Beginners

Rate this book!

Write a review?