- ISBN13: 9780061340406
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Of all the literary forms, the novel is arguably the most discussed . . . and fretted over. From Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote to the works of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and today’s masters, the novel has grown with and adapted to changing societies and technologies, mixing tradition and innovation in every age throughout history. Thomas C. Foster—the sage and scholar who ingeniously led readers through the fascinating symbolic code… More >>
How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World’s Favorite Literary Form
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First, there is reality. Then there are authors’ internalizations of reality. Then there are authors’ novels, which are based upon their internalizations. Then there is Prof. Foster’s internalization of these novels. Then there is Prof. Fosters book based upon these internalizations. Then there are the readers’ internalizations of Prof. Foster’s book. Then there are the readers’ reviews based upon their internalizations. Seems that, by now, readers are so far abstracted from reality that comments are meaningless. If I must comment, however, I must admit I enjoyed this erudite and witty book more than the dozens of other literature books I’ve read in the last six months. Bravo!
Rating: 5 / 5
If I were to meet Thomas Foster, I would probably enjoy talking to him. He has a good sense of humor and he knows his stuff; reading him, however, is a completely different experience. Like everyone else, I enjoy the occasional presence of levity, but Foster lays it on too think in this guide to digesting a novel’s deeper meaning.
One of the most challenging and profound intellectual pursuits, critically reading a novel is not something to be taken lightly. I know that Professor Foster has great admiration and respect for literature seeing as he has devoted his life to studying it, but his tone and the words he uses to describe some of the greatest works in literature came off irreverent, which both surprised and bothered me. For example, he refers to War and Peace as “a little fourteen hundred page DITTY about the war against Napoleon” (280). I don’t like when scholars take their work too seriously, but comments such as this AND discussing Harry Potter alongside the greatest novels ever written seems too far in the other direction.
However, the book does have its strong points. It introduces several meaningful, college-level topics, including but not limited to metafiction (elements in a novel that discuss novel writing), stream of consciousness (literature’s newest and most radical innovation), character emblems (possessions that help illuminate a character’s significance) and the importance of an author’s diction and syntax (I particularly enjoyed this one as it featured an insightful comparison of the radically disparate styles of Faulkner and Hemingway).
In the end, discovering satisfying meaning and pleasure in reading remains a deeply personal undertaking. No guide, whether jocular or scholarly, will be able to communicate exactly how one should approach the interpretation of a novel because, as Foster himself acknowledges, we all bring different experiences to our reading. An instructor can give his student pointers, but understanding a novel’s greatest value requires that the reader see the narrative in terms of his life, which, of course, is a skill that cannot be taught.
Rating: 2 / 5
this is a little bit of insite into the world of books.
not all of us have lit degrees and are limited in our resources.
so this was a little gem for me.
I think its a handy little interesting tool for a dedicated reader.
Rating: 5 / 5
Foster is clearly a man who loves literature, and his book offered some worthy insights, but it was a bit too “jaunty” for my taste, and I found his frequent use of films as points of reference, comparison, or example a bit annoying. I would direct a reader interested in this subject to Francine Prose’s wonderful book, “Reading Like a Writer.” Her use of examples is extensive, well chosen, and very convincing. I can only think of one novel that Foster persuaded me to read, whereas Prose turned me on to perhaps a half dozen writers I’d not gotten around to before first reading her book.
Rating: 3 / 5
I loved Professor Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, but this second installment feels more like a sequel than a standalone guide. The chapters here read like “leftovers” for what he didn’t cover in the previous work. For instance, an entire chapter is dedicated to the literary importance of chapter breaks in reading novels–not exactly groundbreaking stuff.
Further, the information in the book could be presented in about 30 pages. The information is presented in the first paragraph of each chapter, propped up with about 9 pages of fluff and discussion of specific novels, then summarized in the concluding paragraph. Highlighting the key points and skipping the fluff, I made it through this book in about two hours.
Do yourself a favor and pick up How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines if you really want to learn a thing or two about reading literature.
Rating: 2 / 5