Drawing on his weekly Guardian column, "Elements of Fiction," John
Mullan offers an engaging look at the novel, focusing mostly on works of
the last ten years as he illuminates the rich resources of novelistic
technique.
Mullan sheds light on some of the true masterworks of contemporary
fiction, including Monica Ali's Brick Lane, J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace,
Don DeLillo's Underworld, Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, Mark
Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Patricia
Highsmith's Ripley under Ground, Ian McEwan's Atonement, John le
Carré's The Constant Gardener, Philip Roth's The Human Stain,
Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated, and Zadie Smith's
White Teeth. He highlights how these acclaimed authors use some of the
basic elements of fiction. Some topics (like plot, dialogue, or
location) will appear familiar to most novel readers, while others
(meta-narrative, prolepsis, amplification) will open readers' eyes to
new ways of understanding and appreciating the writer's craft. Mullan
also excels at comparing modern and classic authors--Nick Hornby's
adoption of a female narrator is compared to Daniel Defoe's; Ian
McEwan's use of weather is set against Austen's and
Hardy's.
How Novels Work explains how the pleasures of novel reading often come
from the formal ingenuity of the novelist, making visible techniques and
effects we are often only half-aware of as we read. It is an
entertaining and stimulating volume that will captivate anyone who is
interested in the contemporary or the classical novel.
