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dilan11's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting. Not brilliant. Definitely worth a re-read.
saidaazizova's review against another edition
4.0
3.5*
Very interesting and well written literary criticism that deals with various features that seem fundamental in the makeup of a novel
Very interesting and well written literary criticism that deals with various features that seem fundamental in the makeup of a novel
kwilson271's review against another edition
5.0
I loved this book. Here are some of my favorite quotes:
So let us think of people as starting life with an experience they forget and ending it with one which they anticipate but cannot understand.
“If God could tell the story of the Universe, the Universe would become fictitious.”
fiction is truer than history, because it goes beyond the evidence, and each of us knows from his own experience that there is something beyond the evidence…
We may divide characters into flat and round…. The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way. If it never surprises, it is flat. If it does not convince, it is a flat pretending to be round.
This—as far as one can generalize—is the inherent defect of novels: they go off at the end: and there are two explanations of it: firstly, failure of pep, which threatens the novelist like all workers: and secondly, the difficulty which we have been discussing. The characters have been getting out of hand, laying foundations and declining to build on them afterwards, and now the novelist has to labour personally, in order that the job may be done to time. He pretends that the characters are acting for him. He keeps mentioning their names and using inverted commas. But the characters are gone or dead.
So let us think of people as starting life with an experience they forget and ending it with one which they anticipate but cannot understand.
“If God could tell the story of the Universe, the Universe would become fictitious.”
fiction is truer than history, because it goes beyond the evidence, and each of us knows from his own experience that there is something beyond the evidence…
We may divide characters into flat and round…. The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way. If it never surprises, it is flat. If it does not convince, it is a flat pretending to be round.
This—as far as one can generalize—is the inherent defect of novels: they go off at the end: and there are two explanations of it: firstly, failure of pep, which threatens the novelist like all workers: and secondly, the difficulty which we have been discussing. The characters have been getting out of hand, laying foundations and declining to build on them afterwards, and now the novelist has to labour personally, in order that the job may be done to time. He pretends that the characters are acting for him. He keeps mentioning their names and using inverted commas. But the characters are gone or dead.
kenna_ainjo's review against another edition
3.0
I wasn't a fan of Forster's random tangents and prejudices and his beating formalism into everyone's heads before beginning the actual lectures, but a lot of his thoughts were interesting. I enjoyed the sections on character and plot, which contain a lot of now-common ideas. My favorite parts were the chapters about fantasy, prophecy, and pattern because I hadn't heard those ideas described before.
abetterjulie's review against another edition
2.0
This book has a few gems mixed in with the outdated and esoteric references. I've read a lot of classics comparatively, but hardly any of the ones he uses as examples. That made it a bit of a strain to follow along. I felt like it started out strong, and I did highlight a couple of excellent thoughts, but then it fell apart and I was just reading to finish.
oldpondnewfrog's review against another edition
3.0
Entertaining and useful. Forster successfully explains how novels do and don't work (for him, at least) through constituent parts of story, characters, use of fantasy, "prophecy", plot, etc.. e.g.: A successful story keeps the king wondering what happens next. Round and flat characters, and the uses of each. Plot events are a door through which the book is made to pass, emerging in an altered form.
Uses helpful examples from literature throughout.
Uses helpful examples from literature throughout.
octoberdad's review against another edition
5.0
For those of my friends who have read CSL's [b:An Experiment in Criticism|80007|An Experiment in Criticism (Canto)|C.S. Lewis|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347790855s/80007.jpg|77261] and Tolkien's [b:On Fairy-Stories|1362112|Tolkien on Fairy-stories|J.R.R. Tolkien|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1326706200s/1362112.jpg|1351902], this makes an interesting companion. Although Forster doesn't really address things in quite the same way, he does have chapters on "Fantasy" and "Prophecy," each of which I think has some confluence with CSL and Big T.
guiltyfeat's review against another edition
4.0
It's been a while since I dove into any literary criticism, but I saw this and it took my fancy. It's a neat collection of a series of lectures that Forster gave in 1927. His unusual take on the novel includes disregarding period and chronological context. He treats all novels and all authors as if they are sitting in the room at the same time. This means he freely compares the great novels of the 18th century with Austen, Bronte and Dickens while also referencing Ulysses by James Joyce which had been published in Paris in 1922 but was unavailable at that time either in the UK or the US.
He's great on the different ways novels are put together and merciless on Henry James. That's enough to get a thumbs up from me.
He's great on the different ways novels are put together and merciless on Henry James. That's enough to get a thumbs up from me.
imperfectcj's review against another edition
4.0
In the 1920s, the lecture series appears to have been the equivalent of today's serial podcast, or at least that's how this collection reads to me. Forster is casual but erudite, and through his thorough and sometimes humorous analysis, he conveys his deep understanding of and love for the novel as a literary form. There was much more to this book than I expected, and I very much enjoyed it.