Scan barcode
nora_dlc's review against another edition
5.0
Esta colección me parece deliciosa, y este tomo es recomendable para quien aspira a escribir, pero no como preceptiva, sino como muestra de los múltiples ángulos desde los cuales se puede abordar la creación literaria como actividad estética, pero también ética y filosófica.
l_nolastname's review
4.0
Very interesting to read about what I take for granted, the art of fiction.
brockf15's review
5.0
THIS was the guide to writing I was looking for! There’s real encouragement here, and although it predates The Elements of Style, it manages to feel far more contemporary. Henry James pretty much felt about literature what my circle feels about independent film today. There’s a great and liberating freedom just to be interesting!!
zegim's review against another edition
5.0
En este libro se reúnen tres ensayos en los que Besant, Miller y Stevenson, defienden el escribir ficción como una forma de arte, digna de reconocimiento y que aporta algo valioso al mundo.
Es una lectura interesante que nos muestra que en algún punto de al historia ser un novelista era visto como algo penoso y las novelas eran consideradas una de las formas más bajas de entretenimiento. Besant, Miller y Stevenson argumentan con ingenio y buen humor que escribir ficción ocupa un lugar importante en la vida de las personas y aunque no sea una actividad en sí misma filosófica, científica o tecnológica, le da a las personas algo que no podrían conocer de ningún otro modo.
Es una lectura breve, agradable y recomendable para todos los que en algún momento se preguntan si tiene sentido leer o escribir novelas.
Es una lectura interesante que nos muestra que en algún punto de al historia ser un novelista era visto como algo penoso y las novelas eran consideradas una de las formas más bajas de entretenimiento. Besant, Miller y Stevenson argumentan con ingenio y buen humor que escribir ficción ocupa un lugar importante en la vida de las personas y aunque no sea una actividad en sí misma filosófica, científica o tecnológica, le da a las personas algo que no podrían conocer de ningún otro modo.
Es una lectura breve, agradable y recomendable para todos los que en algún momento se preguntan si tiene sentido leer o escribir novelas.
booksaremagic's review against another edition
3.0
Worth reading. Quite short, from a speech.
#bookaday summer
#rorygilmorereadingchallenge
#bookaday summer
#rorygilmorereadingchallenge
amandaalexandre's review against another edition
3.0
DISCLAIMER: I copied these notes for personal reasons only: I use GR to keep track of my notes, since I don't trust my Kobo and notebooks are impractical. I know I am a cheap bastard and don't deserve any like for it. so, this was NOT written by me!
Henry James's“The Art of Fiction”
Why is it revolutionary?
1. Choice of subject belongs to the artist without restriction.
We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his donnée; our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it. (561)
2. Conscious artistry and treatment of the subject is the key.
Art is essentially selection. (563).
Questions of art are questions (in the widest sense) of execution. (655)
3. Organic structure is important.
A novel is a living thing, all one and continuous, like any other organism, and in proportion as it lives will be found, I think, that in each of the parts there is something of each of the other parts. (560)
4. Artistry, not morality, should be the criterion. "Bad" novels and "good" novels are a matter of taste, not morality or choice of subject matter.
Nothing, of course, will ever take the place of the good old fashion of "liking" a work or not liking it. (562).
There are bad novels and good novels, as there are bad pictures and good pictures; but that is the only distinction in which I can see any meaning. (560)
5. Faithfulness to life (realism) is the important factor.
The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life. (554).
The air of reality (solidity of specification) seems to me to be the supreme virtue of a novel (559).
6. The expertise of the writer, like that of the painter, depends upon an artistic sensibility and openness to impressions.
Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spiderweb of the finest silk threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness. (559).
A novel is in its broadest definition a personal, a direct impression of life. (557)
It goes without saying that you will not write a good novel unless you possess the sense of reality; but it will be difficult to give you a recipe for calling that sense into being. (558).
“Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!” (559)
Henry James's“The Art of Fiction”
Why is it revolutionary?
1. Choice of subject belongs to the artist without restriction.
We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his donnée; our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it. (561)
2. Conscious artistry and treatment of the subject is the key.
Art is essentially selection. (563).
Questions of art are questions (in the widest sense) of execution. (655)
3. Organic structure is important.
A novel is a living thing, all one and continuous, like any other organism, and in proportion as it lives will be found, I think, that in each of the parts there is something of each of the other parts. (560)
4. Artistry, not morality, should be the criterion. "Bad" novels and "good" novels are a matter of taste, not morality or choice of subject matter.
Nothing, of course, will ever take the place of the good old fashion of "liking" a work or not liking it. (562).
There are bad novels and good novels, as there are bad pictures and good pictures; but that is the only distinction in which I can see any meaning. (560)
5. Faithfulness to life (realism) is the important factor.
The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life. (554).
The air of reality (solidity of specification) seems to me to be the supreme virtue of a novel (559).
6. The expertise of the writer, like that of the painter, depends upon an artistic sensibility and openness to impressions.
Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spiderweb of the finest silk threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness. (559).
A novel is in its broadest definition a personal, a direct impression of life. (557)
It goes without saying that you will not write a good novel unless you possess the sense of reality; but it will be difficult to give you a recipe for calling that sense into being. (558).
“Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!” (559)
lnatal's review against another edition
3.0
You may read online here.
Published in Longman's Magazine 4 (September 1884), and reprinted in Partial Portraits (Macmillan, 1888)..
Quotations:
The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does compete with life.
Literature should be either instructive or amusing, and there is in many minds an impression that these artistic preoccupations, the search for form, contribute to neither end, interfere indeed with both.
But there is as much difference as there ever was between a good novel and a bad one: the bad is swept, with all the daubed canvases and spoiled marble, into some unvisited limbo or infinite rubbish-yard, beneath the back-windows of the world, and the good subsists and emits its light and stimulates our desire for perfection.
A novel is in its broadest definition a personal impression of life; that, to begin with, constitutes its value, which is greater or less according to the intensity of the impression. But there will be no intensity at all, and therefore no value, unless there is freedom to feel and say.
Published in Longman's Magazine 4 (September 1884), and reprinted in Partial Portraits (Macmillan, 1888)..
Quotations:
The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does compete with life.
Literature should be either instructive or amusing, and there is in many minds an impression that these artistic preoccupations, the search for form, contribute to neither end, interfere indeed with both.
But there is as much difference as there ever was between a good novel and a bad one: the bad is swept, with all the daubed canvases and spoiled marble, into some unvisited limbo or infinite rubbish-yard, beneath the back-windows of the world, and the good subsists and emits its light and stimulates our desire for perfection.
A novel is in its broadest definition a personal impression of life; that, to begin with, constitutes its value, which is greater or less according to the intensity of the impression. But there will be no intensity at all, and therefore no value, unless there is freedom to feel and say.
More...