What do you think?
Rate this book
The Questions That Matter Most: Reading, Writing, and the Exercise of Freedom
Now in paperback, Pulitzer-winning novelist Jane Smiley presents her first nonfiction volume on writing since 2005’s best-selling Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel . "Smiley gives educators, readers, and writers much to discuss. Highly recommended." — Library Journal , starred review "Line for line, Smiley delivers such clear, vibrant, precise prose—handed forth as calmly and equitably as an ice cream cone, even when she’s incensed—that a reader feels smarter just taking it in." — The Boston Globe Long acclaimed as one of America’s preeminent novelists, Jane Smiley is also an unparalleled observer of the craft of writing. In The Questions That Matter Most this Pulitzer Prize–winning writer offers steady and penetrating essays on some of the aesthetic and cultural issues that mark any serious engagement with reading and writing. Beginning with a personal introduction tracing Smiley’s migration from Iowa to California, the author reflects on her findings in the varied literature of the Golden State, whose writers have for decades litigated the West’s contested legacies of racism, class conflict, and sexual politics through their pens. As she considers the ambiguity of character and the weight of history, her essays provide new entry points into literature, and we lucky readers can see how Smiley draws inspiration from across the literary spectrum to invigorate her own writing. With enthusiasm and meticulous attention, Smiley dives beneath surface-level interpretations to examine the works of Marguerite de Navarre, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Franz Kafka, Halldór Laxness, and Jessica Mitford. Throughout, Smiley seeks to think harder and, in her words, with "more clarity and nuance" about the questions that matter most.
256 pages, Paperback
Published June 4, 2024
32 people are currently reading
2324 people want to read
About the author
Jane Smiley
130 books2,694 followersJane Smiley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist.
Born in Los Angeles, California, Smiley grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and graduated from John Burroughs School. She obtained a A.B. at Vassar College, then earned a M.F.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. While working towards her doctorate, she also spent a year studying in Iceland as a Fulbright Scholar. From 1981 to 1996, she taught at Iowa State University. Smiley published her first novel, Barn Blind, in 1980, and won a 1985 O. Henry Award for her short story "Lily", which was published in The Atlantic Monthly. Her best-selling A Thousand Acres, a story based on William Shakespeare's King Lear, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992. It was adapted into a film of the same title in 1997. In 1995 she wrote her sole television script produced, for an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street. Her novella The Age of Grief was made into the 2002 film The Secret Lives of Dentists.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (2005), is a non-fiction meditation on the history and the nature of the novel, somewhat in the tradition of E. M. Forster's seminal Aspects of the Novel, that roams from eleventh century Japan's Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji to twenty-first century Americans chick lit.
In 2001, Smiley was elected a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Born in Los Angeles, California, Smiley grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and graduated from John Burroughs School. She obtained a A.B. at Vassar College, then earned a M.F.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. While working towards her doctorate, she also spent a year studying in Iceland as a Fulbright Scholar. From 1981 to 1996, she taught at Iowa State University. Smiley published her first novel, Barn Blind, in 1980, and won a 1985 O. Henry Award for her short story "Lily", which was published in The Atlantic Monthly. Her best-selling A Thousand Acres, a story based on William Shakespeare's King Lear, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992. It was adapted into a film of the same title in 1997. In 1995 she wrote her sole television script produced, for an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street. Her novella The Age of Grief was made into the 2002 film The Secret Lives of Dentists.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (2005), is a non-fiction meditation on the history and the nature of the novel, somewhat in the tradition of E. M. Forster's seminal Aspects of the Novel, that roams from eleventh century Japan's Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji to twenty-first century Americans chick lit.
In 2001, Smiley was elected a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
Read
January 2, 2024I got about half in, could be what it's like to be a student in Jane Smiley's lit or writing class. Tons of literary references.
Here's a few quotes I wrote down before I left."Successful motherhood is a unique form of responsibility-taking, rooted in an understanding of competing demands, compromise, nurture, making the best of things, weighing often competing limitations, in order to arrive at a realistic mode of survival." (p 47)
On mothers who are writers: "I never understood the interplay of love and power before I had children. I never knew what it felt like to have my actions magnified so enormously by the dependency of another. The intensity of my feelings, both positive and negative, was a certified surprise to me. In bad times, the strength I found to maintain some kind of stable routine, the faith I had in the simple value of survival, all of this came to me through my children."(p. 58)
(The absence of the mother-perspective in literature) "has led us to invest our substance in religious fanaticism, crop monoculture, capitalistic gigantism, political and military conquest, aggrandizement of the self above everything and everyone else. It is a vision that, if we can insert it into the stream of literature, may help our culture to pause so we can save ourselves and the world that cradles us after all." (p. 60)
More writing mothers!
I might not have given up, but it wasn't the right book for me at this time.
Here's a few quotes I wrote down before I left."Successful motherhood is a unique form of responsibility-taking, rooted in an understanding of competing demands, compromise, nurture, making the best of things, weighing often competing limitations, in order to arrive at a realistic mode of survival." (p 47)
On mothers who are writers: "I never understood the interplay of love and power before I had children. I never knew what it felt like to have my actions magnified so enormously by the dependency of another. The intensity of my feelings, both positive and negative, was a certified surprise to me. In bad times, the strength I found to maintain some kind of stable routine, the faith I had in the simple value of survival, all of this came to me through my children."(p. 58)
(The absence of the mother-perspective in literature) "has led us to invest our substance in religious fanaticism, crop monoculture, capitalistic gigantism, political and military conquest, aggrandizement of the self above everything and everyone else. It is a vision that, if we can insert it into the stream of literature, may help our culture to pause so we can save ourselves and the world that cradles us after all." (p. 60)
More writing mothers!
I might not have given up, but it wasn't the right book for me at this time.
Read
July 11, 2023A mishmash of book introductions, reviews, scholarly essays, and miscellaneous stories. Based on the subtitle and description, I was expecting a collection of original, or at least linked, pieces—but as is, it’s all over the place and a little inaccessible to general readers. I enjoyed the more personal essays. Much of it seemed aimed for an academic audience, which wasn’t what I was looking for when I picked it up.
December 17, 2023
Jane Smiley's writing about writing is so clear and compelling that reading _13 Ways of Looking at the Novel_ inspired me to try writing one of my own (as she recommends).
Some of the smartest descriptions of motherhood I've ever seen.
From "Can Mothers Think?" In the view of psychology, there's overlap in "psychology's view of mothers between 'coldness' and overprotectiveness' [such that because] these two cate3gories overlap, no positive ground of 'autonomy' and 'loving-relatedness' [remains that] mothers can stand on. In the world of psychoanalysis, there is no space for mothers to have their own points of view about the demands their children make and whether these demands are realistic and able to be satisfied" (47).
"To be an adult mother/writer would be to challenge the universality of the themes present in 'child-centric' and father-centric' literatures" (35) What would such a vision contain? She points out that _Beloved_ makes a strong case that infanticide is the highest form of mother-love in some circumstances.
Another would be "preoccupation with - insistence upon - survival, rather than the grand gesture of tragic death that ends so many masterpieces .. . . There is, in western literature, what has to be interpreted as a refusal to go on, a willingness on the part of the larger heroes to vacate the mortal world through conflict, suicide, or a failure of the will to live. Need I add that there's always a mess to be cleaned up afterward that is not the concern of the dead tragic hero? A mother's vision would encompass survival, as it does in Beloved and Family Pictures, would encompass the cleaning up of messes" (56)
the interplay of love and power when raising children
"The failure of [previous] literature to include mothers means that the delicate negotiation between responsibilities to self and to others, as represented by children and husband, but also by social networks of friends and coworkers, is never modeled for the culture at large. There are, certainly, many successful mothers who know themselves and their children, who understand the pleasures and dangers of the world we live in, who make their way with courage and intelligence and good humor. Successful motherhood is a unique form of responsibility-taking, rooted in an understanding of competing demands, compromise, nurture, making the best of things, weighing often competing limitations, in order to arrive at a realistic mode of survival. A successful mother, we may imagine, is one who actually looks at her children and sees them, constantly weighing heir potential against who they already seem to be, finding a balance that encourages them to live up to their pest potential while not destroying them with impossible demands - while at the same time knowing the world they live in well enough to realistically judge how free they might be allowed to be without endangering themselves. Can a culture exist without such a strong model of responsible, realistic care?" (48)
"the novel is inherently political. A protagonist mujst exist in relationship to a group. There must be conflict between teh protagonist and at least part of the group, and the conflict must be resolved in favor of, or in opposition to, the protagonist. Therefore the protagonist represents something, and what she or he represents is the exercise of power - her or his own, or the power used against her or him." (67).
"The entire time you are reading any novel, you are experiencing freedom and autonomy, and this is a political experience" (68).
Lovely essay that the idea that Huck Finn is a great novel embodies precisely everything that is wrong with America and racism, b/c Jim is a sidekick, and "Twain thinks that Huck's affection is good enough for Jim" instead of, you know, Huck changing his plans and doing something actually effective to aid Jim's liberation, like taking him across the river to Illinois, which seemed never to be an option. Whereas Uncle Tom's Cabin was "the most popular novel of its era, universally controversial," portrays a range of complex characters, and understands that racism is about capitalism. Uncle Tom is not an example of "bovine patience" but realistic and deeply principled: he understands that if he is not sold, the whole plantation where his wife and three children live will go under, and "Tom's story eerily prefigures stories of spiritual solace through deep religious belief that have come out of both the Soviet Gulag and the Nazi concentration camp in the same way tha the structure of power on Legree's plantation, and the suffering endured there, forecasts and duplicates many stories of recent genocides" (161).
"[Stowe] truly believed that all Americans together had to find a solution to the problem of slavery in which all were implicated. When her voice, a courageously public voice - as demonstrated by the public arguments about slavery that rage through UTC - fell silent in our culture and was replaced by the secretive voice of Huck Finn, who acknowledges Jim only when they are alone on the raft together out in the middle of the big river, racism fell out of the public world and into the private one, where whites think it really is, but Blacks know it really isn't" (167).
From her re-writing of the end of Metamorphosis: "Nor could you, Gregor reflected, die by wishing to. All too often you had to wake up and live on. Make the best of things. Focus on the little physical pleasures of moving and eating and feeling a bit of a breeze and try to get through the rest" (182).
Some of the smartest descriptions of motherhood I've ever seen.
From "Can Mothers Think?" In the view of psychology, there's overlap in "psychology's view of mothers between 'coldness' and overprotectiveness' [such that because] these two cate3gories overlap, no positive ground of 'autonomy' and 'loving-relatedness' [remains that] mothers can stand on. In the world of psychoanalysis, there is no space for mothers to have their own points of view about the demands their children make and whether these demands are realistic and able to be satisfied" (47).
"To be an adult mother/writer would be to challenge the universality of the themes present in 'child-centric' and father-centric' literatures" (35) What would such a vision contain? She points out that _Beloved_ makes a strong case that infanticide is the highest form of mother-love in some circumstances.
Another would be "preoccupation with - insistence upon - survival, rather than the grand gesture of tragic death that ends so many masterpieces .. . . There is, in western literature, what has to be interpreted as a refusal to go on, a willingness on the part of the larger heroes to vacate the mortal world through conflict, suicide, or a failure of the will to live. Need I add that there's always a mess to be cleaned up afterward that is not the concern of the dead tragic hero? A mother's vision would encompass survival, as it does in Beloved and Family Pictures, would encompass the cleaning up of messes" (56)
the interplay of love and power when raising children
"The failure of [previous] literature to include mothers means that the delicate negotiation between responsibilities to self and to others, as represented by children and husband, but also by social networks of friends and coworkers, is never modeled for the culture at large. There are, certainly, many successful mothers who know themselves and their children, who understand the pleasures and dangers of the world we live in, who make their way with courage and intelligence and good humor. Successful motherhood is a unique form of responsibility-taking, rooted in an understanding of competing demands, compromise, nurture, making the best of things, weighing often competing limitations, in order to arrive at a realistic mode of survival. A successful mother, we may imagine, is one who actually looks at her children and sees them, constantly weighing heir potential against who they already seem to be, finding a balance that encourages them to live up to their pest potential while not destroying them with impossible demands - while at the same time knowing the world they live in well enough to realistically judge how free they might be allowed to be without endangering themselves. Can a culture exist without such a strong model of responsible, realistic care?" (48)
"the novel is inherently political. A protagonist mujst exist in relationship to a group. There must be conflict between teh protagonist and at least part of the group, and the conflict must be resolved in favor of, or in opposition to, the protagonist. Therefore the protagonist represents something, and what she or he represents is the exercise of power - her or his own, or the power used against her or him." (67).
"The entire time you are reading any novel, you are experiencing freedom and autonomy, and this is a political experience" (68).
Lovely essay that the idea that Huck Finn is a great novel embodies precisely everything that is wrong with America and racism, b/c Jim is a sidekick, and "Twain thinks that Huck's affection is good enough for Jim" instead of, you know, Huck changing his plans and doing something actually effective to aid Jim's liberation, like taking him across the river to Illinois, which seemed never to be an option. Whereas Uncle Tom's Cabin was "the most popular novel of its era, universally controversial," portrays a range of complex characters, and understands that racism is about capitalism. Uncle Tom is not an example of "bovine patience" but realistic and deeply principled: he understands that if he is not sold, the whole plantation where his wife and three children live will go under, and "Tom's story eerily prefigures stories of spiritual solace through deep religious belief that have come out of both the Soviet Gulag and the Nazi concentration camp in the same way tha the structure of power on Legree's plantation, and the suffering endured there, forecasts and duplicates many stories of recent genocides" (161).
"[Stowe] truly believed that all Americans together had to find a solution to the problem of slavery in which all were implicated. When her voice, a courageously public voice - as demonstrated by the public arguments about slavery that rage through UTC - fell silent in our culture and was replaced by the secretive voice of Huck Finn, who acknowledges Jim only when they are alone on the raft together out in the middle of the big river, racism fell out of the public world and into the private one, where whites think it really is, but Blacks know it really isn't" (167).
From her re-writing of the end of Metamorphosis: "Nor could you, Gregor reflected, die by wishing to. All too often you had to wake up and live on. Make the best of things. Focus on the little physical pleasures of moving and eating and feeling a bit of a breeze and try to get through the rest" (182).
Read
August 13, 2023A marvelous offering for those who would love to take a literacy criticism class taught by the great Jane Smiley. Not so much if you want to lose yourself in her gorgeous writing.
June 15, 2024
I enjoyed this but I think it helps to be a fan in the first place. Also listening to Smiley's narration. (At 1.5x speed cause she takes her time.)
August 31, 2024
I won the paperback edition of The questions that matter most from a goodreads giveaway.
I enjoyed the first essay then the next few essays I was not that interested in. So I wondered if I wanted to finish reading it. Then the essays started to get interesting. I liked the essays about Charles Dickens, the Mitford sisters, Nancy Mitford, there was an essay called why go on? about why writers keep writing.
After reading the questions that matter most I feel that writing a novel would be exciting. The book talks about the characters in a novel being your imaginary friends and that seems exciting to me. And there is also an essay about the freedom of writing and that also would make me want to write a novel.
One thing I remember from the book is "No one asked you to write a novel". Which the author saw I think it was in her teachers office. It might also be this novel. And I think an attitude like that would be good for a lot of things. At least for me.
I tell myself I have to do this or I have to do that. However if its not my job I don't have to do it. So for me more of I don't have to do this or I don't have to do that thing would be good. Free me up.
So I liked most of the essays in the questions that matter most. And it got me excited about writing. So I hope I write more after reading the book.
I enjoyed the first essay then the next few essays I was not that interested in. So I wondered if I wanted to finish reading it. Then the essays started to get interesting. I liked the essays about Charles Dickens, the Mitford sisters, Nancy Mitford, there was an essay called why go on? about why writers keep writing.
After reading the questions that matter most I feel that writing a novel would be exciting. The book talks about the characters in a novel being your imaginary friends and that seems exciting to me. And there is also an essay about the freedom of writing and that also would make me want to write a novel.
One thing I remember from the book is "No one asked you to write a novel". Which the author saw I think it was in her teachers office. It might also be this novel. And I think an attitude like that would be good for a lot of things. At least for me.
I tell myself I have to do this or I have to do that. However if its not my job I don't have to do it. So for me more of I don't have to do this or I don't have to do that thing would be good. Free me up.
So I liked most of the essays in the questions that matter most. And it got me excited about writing. So I hope I write more after reading the book.
May 10, 2025
I was a little nervous to try this book, since I hated LitCrit in college. At the time, the fashion was to slice the work apart more thinly than the lox at Zabars, whereas I preferred to let myself down easy in a warm fragrant bubble bath created by the author. Then I saw the cover art was Smiley immersed in a tub with books! Plus there was a really really detailed Note On Type, which for me, like William Least Heat-Moon's wall calendars, is always a gauge of excellence in a book. So I decided yes. I wasn't disappointed. I liked her observation that the authors she liked were all childless, and that she could weave a discussion of Christina Stead in with Jean Kerr. She also has turns of phrase I like such as "No two ways about that". For readers, she has a way of making you want to run out and read a book (I have a little list of possibles like Munro's View from Castle Rock, Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate, and Cather's My Antonia, Smiley's own Greenlanders, might even dare Trollop and Sir Walter Scott). For writers, it's full of suggestions, and not a few cautions (at some point she mentions Munro, retiring from writing and looking forward to doing something "more sociable and less taxing"). I liked her comments on older writers having "fluency" - it's never too late!!
August 27, 2024
I WON A COPY FROM GOODREADS JUNE 5TH. Thank you to Goodreads and Heyday publishers for my copy received on August 19th. I FELL RIGHT INTO IT. The book is composed of Jane Smiley's writings on books and authors which have influenced and accompanied her life as a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist. I find the composition of the book a biography via books. Introducing herself to the reader, Smiley writes of her family and upbringing. A child of a World War II veteran myself, much resonated here. Our dads were initially drawn to the soon defunct cavalry (my dad's horse was named Juanita for my mother) before signing on the air corps. Our dads both suffered mental illness, Jane's more acutely and remotely than my at home father. Empathy established with the author, I traveled with Jane to Iceland, such a remote and eerily strange land. I jumped to the final chapters on England's literary and political Mitford sisters, Jessica and Nancy, from a family which has long intrigued me. Jane's musings on women as authors, and as married women and mothers, Can Mothers Think?, presented a new meaning to me, at least, in the current political climate and a certain vice-presidential candidate's stated views on women, singles and mothers. Maybe that's just me, but politics permeates so much these days, and the written word is a living evolving thing. From which of the March sisters Jane Smiley most identifies with, to an in depth examination of Willa Cather and My Antonia, from a personal journey through St. Louis to a defense of historical fiction-take that Niall Ferguson-these pages present an all embracing take on love of and for the writers' craft by one of the best.
September 5, 2024
A very good collection of observations on writers and writing from one of the contemporary masters.
I could see a book like this as a supplement to high school and college literature classes, as Smiley offers food for thought that would make for excellent debate. (The inclusion of the short essay on Alice Munro is unfortunate, though, in light of recent events.)
I could see a book like this as a supplement to high school and college literature classes, as Smiley offers food for thought that would make for excellent debate. (The inclusion of the short essay on Alice Munro is unfortunate, though, in light of recent events.)
September 15, 2024
An interesting look into the mind and thought processes of Jane Smiley. At the same time we learn something of her education and development as a writer. It greatly enriched my sense of who Jane Smiley is. Fun to learn she now lives on the California coast - a bit south of where I now spend my summers.
Read
March 27, 2025I listened to the audiobook sample of this book and as much as I love this author, I was not really comfortable with her voice.
When I read, lucky, her writing voice is so calm. And I prefer her writing voice.
I clicked that I read this one in order to be able to open up this space so I could write a note to myself here. I would like to read this book and print if it is large print.
When I read, lucky, her writing voice is so calm. And I prefer her writing voice.
I clicked that I read this one in order to be able to open up this space so I could write a note to myself here. I would like to read this book and print if it is large print.
July 14, 2025
I am not the best person to be writing a review on a series of essays, as that is most definitely not my cup of tea. I found some of the essays interesting, but most read like a school assignment for me and it just isn’t what I teach for to read and get lost in language. Probably a resounding “yes” for many, but, unfortunately, a hard “no” for me.
September 27, 2025
It's good writing, insightful writing but it references many things I haven't read. Even still, there are good messages but it just isn't particularly engaging to read. I probably would not recommend this.
June 13, 2023
This book arrived from Amazon late yesterday. I couldn't put it down.
Some of these essays are autobiographical, providing insight into her novels. Many are appreciations of favorite authors. Reading those was like visiting old friends I hadn't heard from in decades. For me, the essay about Little Women, focusing on Amy, was the gem of those. Prompted by her words, I just order a few books by Trollope and Alice Hoffman that I hadn't read before.
She also writes inspiringly about the process and pleasure of writing fiction.
She mentions that, for her, 50-pages an hour is a normal pace for reading authors like Dickens. I envy her that. My pace is more like 25-30. As it is, I've read nearly 4000 books in my 77 years. (I've kept a list. You can see it at goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... or at my website seltzerbooks/readall.html ) If I could read as fast as she does, I could have read twice as many. What an amazing pleasure that would have been.
Some favorite passages:
"... the outstanding hallmark of Dickens's style is his mastery of the use of figurative language -- objects, processes, and people are continuously likened to other objects, processes, and people, in order to get at their underlying sense. p. 97
"when a plot is not autobiographical, the author feels a freedom of depiction that opens up the world of memory to bits and pieces that are alive but unattached to any particular history. p. 175
"...the job of a novelist is to do her (or his) beset to see the world through her character's point of view -- to imagine simultaneously what she and her subject are thinking and feeling as human beings, no matter how far apart they are ..." p. 213
"to me, that's the essence of the novel: the tension between wanting to linger in appreciation of an individual line and wanting to see what happens next." p. 231-232
"That kind of experience is what I always want: the energy that comes from sudden inspiration. That's what inspiration is to me -- the idea that gives unexpected energy tot he narrative. Work that is too planned out often doesn't have that kind of energy." p. 235
Some of these essays are autobiographical, providing insight into her novels. Many are appreciations of favorite authors. Reading those was like visiting old friends I hadn't heard from in decades. For me, the essay about Little Women, focusing on Amy, was the gem of those. Prompted by her words, I just order a few books by Trollope and Alice Hoffman that I hadn't read before.
She also writes inspiringly about the process and pleasure of writing fiction.
She mentions that, for her, 50-pages an hour is a normal pace for reading authors like Dickens. I envy her that. My pace is more like 25-30. As it is, I've read nearly 4000 books in my 77 years. (I've kept a list. You can see it at goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... or at my website seltzerbooks/readall.html ) If I could read as fast as she does, I could have read twice as many. What an amazing pleasure that would have been.
Some favorite passages:
"... the outstanding hallmark of Dickens's style is his mastery of the use of figurative language -- objects, processes, and people are continuously likened to other objects, processes, and people, in order to get at their underlying sense. p. 97
"when a plot is not autobiographical, the author feels a freedom of depiction that opens up the world of memory to bits and pieces that are alive but unattached to any particular history. p. 175
"...the job of a novelist is to do her (or his) beset to see the world through her character's point of view -- to imagine simultaneously what she and her subject are thinking and feeling as human beings, no matter how far apart they are ..." p. 213
"to me, that's the essence of the novel: the tension between wanting to linger in appreciation of an individual line and wanting to see what happens next." p. 231-232
"That kind of experience is what I always want: the energy that comes from sudden inspiration. That's what inspiration is to me -- the idea that gives unexpected energy tot he narrative. Work that is too planned out often doesn't have that kind of energy." p. 235
April 11, 2024
The Artistic Journey to Where?
Jane Smiley’s thoughts about writing appeal to me as much as any professor I ever had or most other novelists who share themselves with those of us who love fiction and want or already do write. In particular I like how she describes the journey of starting with something, anything, and the staying open state of consciousness to where the words are taking you. “Go with the flow” was the hippie mantra and it applies to writing fiction. Of course it’s not quite that simple, as the best novelists always make good decisions, whether conscious or not, oftentimes made during revisions. Jane knows that being a novelist is just another thing to do. Novelists are no more important than the people holding the Go and Stop signs at the roadwork site and in fact could be those same people. (What better way to ruminate on a novel than standing twirling a sign all by yourself eight hours a day?) Novelists possess certain innate powers of observation and develop their toolbox with lots of practice in building their word castles, but should always be humbled by the many great works of art produced by so many journeying our shared roads to wherever the flow will deposit us. Terrific book. Helpful, intelligent, and sprinkled with humor.
Jane Smiley’s thoughts about writing appeal to me as much as any professor I ever had or most other novelists who share themselves with those of us who love fiction and want or already do write. In particular I like how she describes the journey of starting with something, anything, and the staying open state of consciousness to where the words are taking you. “Go with the flow” was the hippie mantra and it applies to writing fiction. Of course it’s not quite that simple, as the best novelists always make good decisions, whether conscious or not, oftentimes made during revisions. Jane knows that being a novelist is just another thing to do. Novelists are no more important than the people holding the Go and Stop signs at the roadwork site and in fact could be those same people. (What better way to ruminate on a novel than standing twirling a sign all by yourself eight hours a day?) Novelists possess certain innate powers of observation and develop their toolbox with lots of practice in building their word castles, but should always be humbled by the many great works of art produced by so many journeying our shared roads to wherever the flow will deposit us. Terrific book. Helpful, intelligent, and sprinkled with humor.
Read
January 20, 2024I received this book as a Christmas gift from a literary friend and enjoyed it very much. Jane Smiley is the Pultizer-prize winning author who made her name with "A Thousand Acres." This collection of essays probes subjects as stated in its subtitle: reading, writing and the exercise of freedom. Smiley is an observer and critic of American letters. With over twenty titles she has established her right to her opinions. In one essay, she questions the common assumption that "Huckleberry Finn" is the greatest American novel. She says that Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is underrated in comparison. She also provocatively challenges the view that historical fiction is less true than historical nonfiction as alleged by Stanford historian Niall Ferguson. Each of the essays sparkles with fresh insights and provides a series of "entry points into literature" as is stated in the cover introduction. At least ten years ago I read "Moo." a satirical commentary on academia in a state agricultural college laughing out loud much of the way through. I am now inspired to catch up with all Smiley's titles that I have missed.
July 15, 2023
I am not a big Smiley reader (maybe 3 of her books), but the title and concept of this book intrigued me.
A collection of occasional pieces Smiley has written over the years. I do wish the publisher would add publication date and place at the end of each piece. It would be helpful here, and in any other similar collection by any other author.
Literary criticism, but not of the dense, academic kind.
She writes as a scholar, woman, mother and WRITER!
I enjoyed those pieces where she interjected her own life into it, her role as a woman and a mother - as in the longest piece, on "Little Women". At times adding into that text what she would have done with her own children in the 21st C!
A surprisingly quick read. Also a nice source for some new reading ideas - her 2 pieces on the non-Nazi Mitford sisters.
What I enjoyed the most about this was her opinion as a writer on other writers' writing.........
4 out of 5 - my thanks to the local PL for getting us a copy when I requested they purchase it.
A collection of occasional pieces Smiley has written over the years. I do wish the publisher would add publication date and place at the end of each piece. It would be helpful here, and in any other similar collection by any other author.
Literary criticism, but not of the dense, academic kind.
She writes as a scholar, woman, mother and WRITER!
I enjoyed those pieces where she interjected her own life into it, her role as a woman and a mother - as in the longest piece, on "Little Women". At times adding into that text what she would have done with her own children in the 21st C!
A surprisingly quick read. Also a nice source for some new reading ideas - her 2 pieces on the non-Nazi Mitford sisters.
What I enjoyed the most about this was her opinion as a writer on other writers' writing.........
4 out of 5 - my thanks to the local PL for getting us a copy when I requested they purchase it.
September 14, 2023
Pass.
I picked this up because I've enjoyed a few Jane Smiley novels and the jacket implied that book contained essays about important subjects.
The first couple of essays, especially the one about Smiley's relationship to her father, were fantastic. Those were followed by a bunch of tired rehashes of literary novels. I've been out of college for quite a while now. While I enjoyed "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" as a Freshman, I'm not really interested in what Mark Twain's supposed purpose was when he wrote it. Same for "My Antonia" or "Othello." And I've never been a Charles Dickens fan so the essay fawning all over Dickens' prose was eye-rollingly silly.
I have a feeling Smiley used this book to fulfill a contract with her publisher. It seemed to serve no other purpose.
I picked this up because I've enjoyed a few Jane Smiley novels and the jacket implied that book contained essays about important subjects.
The first couple of essays, especially the one about Smiley's relationship to her father, were fantastic. Those were followed by a bunch of tired rehashes of literary novels. I've been out of college for quite a while now. While I enjoyed "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" as a Freshman, I'm not really interested in what Mark Twain's supposed purpose was when he wrote it. Same for "My Antonia" or "Othello." And I've never been a Charles Dickens fan so the essay fawning all over Dickens' prose was eye-rollingly silly.
I have a feeling Smiley used this book to fulfill a contract with her publisher. It seemed to serve no other purpose.
June 1, 2023
Great stuff, from the always astute, entertaining Pulitzer Prize winning author.
My interview with Ms. Smiley -endearingly unpretentious in addition to her other wonderful qualities - about her latest, is linked below.
https://www.nobhillgazette.com/the_cu...
My interview with Ms. Smiley -endearingly unpretentious in addition to her other wonderful qualities - about her latest, is linked below.
https://www.nobhillgazette.com/the_cu...
September 13, 2023
I was fortunate enough to see Jane Smiley at a Book Passage event to discuss this collection. She combines great intellect, talent, wit and warmth. You'll find all of that in these pages as well as many recommendations for books to read, and books to read again with a new slant. Her views are refreshing, original and informed. I will continue to enjoy this book as a continuing conversation with this important author.
July 4, 2023
Fiction writer Smiley is a proponent of learning about ideas, people and life from what those writers compose and how their characters think and act. I do take exception to this and believe that important learning and growth can be accomplished by reading non-fiction, biography and autobiography. Yet this was an interesting book to listen to and I realized how many classics I have not read!
November 9, 2023
Honestly, I did not read this from beginning to end. I enjoyed the chapter on Little Women and her observations about Trollope. Although I have read many of the books Smiley discusses, I couldn’t stick with it. Parts were interesting. Others may love the book.
January 3, 2024
This is really a collection (hodgepodge) of literary essays--not at all what I thought it'd be. Do you want to read 40 pages about her thoughts on Amy vs. Jo in "Little Women"? If the answer is yes, this is for you, if not, probably skip.
January 27, 2024
Smiley’s essays are predictably well-written and erudite but I didn’t find any of the essays particularly memorable, though she did convince me to reread a few authors, including Nancy Mitford. I was nevertheless happy to learn more about the talented Smiley.
July 5, 2023
Makes me want to reread every book she discusses. And take her classes.
July 14, 2023
A collection of rambling essays on random topics. Doesn't come close to living up to its name. I've liked Smiley's novels but this is a disappointment.
July 23, 2023
A mish mash of essays about various authors and their works and other subjects on the mind of Jane Smiley. I found a few more books i would like to read based on her commentary.
August 3, 2023
Hit or miss. Some essays were like a rant but other essays were so incredibly thoughtful and thought provoking. Very good read
September 10, 2023
Some of these question matter and some don't.
October 21, 2023
Felt like a cheat. Earlier essays for other publications. Meh.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews