Serious Noticing: Selected Essays, 1997-2019

by James Wood

Ever since the publication of his first essay collection, The Broken Estate, in 1999, James Wood has been widely regarded as a leading literary critic of the English-speaking world. His essays on canonical writers (Gustav Flaubert, Herman Melville), recent legends (Don DeLillo, Marilynne Robinson) and significant contemporaries (Zadie Smith, Elena Ferrante) have established a standard for informed and incisive appreciation, composed in a distinctive literary style all their own.

Together, Wood's essays, and his bestselling How Fiction Works, share an abiding preoccupation with how fiction tells its own truths, and with the vocation of the writer in a world haunted by the absence of God. In Serious Noticing, Wood collects his best essays from two decades of his career, supplementing earlier work with autobiographical reflections from his book The Nearest Thing to Life and recent essays from The New Yorker on young writers of extraordinary promise. The result is an essential guide to literature in the new millennium.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Writing, Literary Criticism, Criticism, Books About Books, Literature

528 pages, Hardcover

First published November 7, 2019

About the author

James Douglas Graham Wood is an English literary critic, essayist and novelist. He is currently Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard University (a part-time position) and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine.
Wood advocates an aesthetic approach to literature, rather than more ideologically-driven trends in academic literary criticism.
Wood is noted for coining the genre term hysterical realism, which he uses to denote the contemporary conception of the "big, ambitious novel" that pursues vitality "at all costs." Hysterical realism describes novels that are characterized by chronic length, manic characters, frenzied action, and frequent digressions on topics secondary to the story.

Reviews

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The opening paragraph in the essay "Jane Austen's Heroic Consciousness":

Jane Austen founded characters and caricature at the same time — which is the essentially satirical, essentially English approach to fictional character. From her, Dickens learned that characters can survive on one large attribute and still be fat with life. From her, Forster learned that characters do not have to change to be real; they must merely reveal more of their stable essence as the novel progresses. Yet at the same time, the first stirrings of what would become Woolf's stream-of-consciousness are found in Austen — she invented a new, rapid semaphore for signalling a person's thoughts as it is happening. It is this innovation, the discovery of how to represent the brokenness of the mind's communication with itself, that constitutes her radicalism.

I have savoured another book by James Wood (How Fiction Works) so was expecting great things from this essay collection. I was not disappointed.

I admit I didn't read the whole book; I skipped around, and focused on writers I was better acquainted with, such as Chekhov, Tolstoy, Austen, George Orwell, Herman Melville, Elana Ferrante, Virginia Woolf. There are also a couple of personal essays, such as the final one: "Packing My Father-in-Law's Library" that offers more insight into the nature of books, the mind of readers, and the joy —and burden— of an accumulation of books.

Everything I read was brilliant, and I expect I will return to this book later and make new discoveries, even in the essays I have already read.

[Nick Papandreou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent literary essays, especially made I would say for readers who are also writers. Unlike most critics, his commentary and analysis is closer to what a writer looks at when creating their own work. Besides the insights, the collection breathes with fresh language and is a "goldmine of tips"worth culling for writers of all degrees of maturity.
His essay on Anton Chekhov (he has two), titled "Serious Noticing"is worth the price of the whole collection. Here he parses the difference between what the main character actually experiences and how that same character recalls it to himself, how he diminishes that very experience when he tries to put it into words is a case in point. (The hero has experienced a moment of erotic intensity because of a kiss planted on his in the dark by mistake by an unknown woman. This single kiss turns out to be the high point of his limited sensual life.
There's his essays on Elena Ferrante (the wonderful Naples Trilogy), Paul Auster whom he blasts to pieces in his essay "Paul Auster's Shallowness".J His essay on Austen begins with: :"Jane Austen founded character and caricature at the same time... from her Dickens learned that characters can survive on one large attribute and still be fat with life." Quite original, this use of "fat" to imply that even one attribute can bring a character to life...
it is the originality of this critic's writing that for me makes his essays a joy to read.

[Domenico Fina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saggi pubblicati tra il 1997 e il 2017. James Wood illustra gli aspetti che rendono un’opera e un autore ammirabili o meno, illumina magistralmente Sebald, Levi, Woolf, Tolstoj, Cechov e mostra più di una perplessità su autori come Paul Auster, la cui prosa secondo Wood, non è un esempio di stile ed è caratterizzata «da un falso realismo e un vacuo scetticismo».

Nei saggi su Primo Levi e su Sebald dà il meglio, tutta l’opera di Levi è meritevole, ma non eminentemente e principalmente come testimonianza di chi è sopravvissuto ai lager, James Wood mostra come Levi sia anzitutto un grande scrittore, Se questo è un uomo e La tregua, sono prima di tutto esempi di straordinaria abilità nell’arte del racconto; a differenza di altri famosi testimoni dei Lager che tendevano a ricavare morali o insegnamenti o apologhi Primo Levi aveva la curiosità, la precisione e l’occhio del grande scrittore, anche quando spiegava le cose in forma di saggio, vedi un altro testo meraviglioso come I sommersi e i salvati, lo faceva da saggista classico, una specie di Proust che ci parla della sua vita. Una lezione di chiarezza, curiosità e mai pesantezza.
Levi Forse è stato il nostro scrittore del Novecento che più di tutti avrebbe meritato il Nobel.
Prendiamo Il sistema periodico, libro amato da James Wood, da Saul Bellow, da Philip Roth, uno dei nostri capolavori, Wood scrive: «Il sistema periodico è un bellissimo libro inclassificabile, insieme un’autobiografia, un esercizio poetico, nonché il testo che più di ogni altro è espressione dei numerosi talenti di Primo Levi».

[Kirk]

I only read the Jane Austen essay, although I hope to go back to this book in the future.

"I suspect that Jane Austen, so private, so enigmatic and contradictory, went through life as if she were the possessor of a clandestine happiness. Like her heroines, she saw things more clearly than other people and so pitied their cloudiness."

[v · Rating 4 out of 5]

An average literary critic holds your attention but does not inspire any lasting interest in the literature they've written about. A good literary critic leaves you eager to get reading and the essayist is, to some extent, ready to quietly step aside. But great literary criticism, as James Wood shows in practically all of these essays, is a fully satisfying end unto itself.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has been my devotional for the last few weeks. I don’t know anyone who lives inside literature the way Wood does, so I should have been prepared for the last essay, but oof! I won’t give a spoiler here; my five stars are for the collection, despite the ending!

[Philipp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely beautiful. A reminder in these dark times that people can love something as deeply as Wood loves literature, and it shows in how well thought-out, kind, and loving these essays are.

(and many non-famous writers to discover too! I second his points on Too Loud A Solitude, go read it)

[Charlie Key · Rating 5 out of 5]

Basically excellent about everything. A bit of a clanger about deconstructionism on the second page but otherwise perfect

[Julie Stielstra · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do I dare write a review of a collection of essays by one of our best literary critics? With trepidation, some idiosyncratic choices of which ones to read and which ones to skip, and a certain recklessness. Which all let me fall on my face. Oh, well, so be it.

I started by skipping the first essay, "The Fun Stuff: Homage to Keith Moon." I do not like rock music, the Who, or Keith Moon. But as I leafed forward to the next, the final paragraph caught my eye: Wood's affectionate mention of the two versions of the Goldberg Variations recorded by Glenn Gould - a beloved topic in our house, and in which he agrees with me. So: when it comes to Wood, there be gems buried even among the apparent dross. From Moon (ick) to Chekhov (yay!), Bellow (whom he admires and I can't bear) to Austen, Cormac McCarthy (not in my house) to Dostoevsky's God (not that he himself isn't nearly one). And just as I was getting very testy with him about his criticisms of Dickens's writing and characters (see my defense of those beloved people HERE), he delights me with a shrewd and loving observation on what saves them: "Yet in Dickens there is always an immediate access to strong feeling, which tears the puppetry of his people breaks their casings, and lets us enter them. Mr. Micawber may be a caricature, a simple, univocal essence, but he feels, and he makes us feel." You are forgiven, Mr. Wood, and I'm going to steal those lines and add them to my blog post.

Even when discussing a writer whom I have tried to read and turned away from for good and all (McCarthy), Wood satisfies because he is not afraid to voice the criticisms, to point out where they fall short or fail outright, but can explain to a skeptic what he may be trying to do, what he IS in fact achieving, and how he does it. Sometimes it's puzzling: he cites a paragraph from The Road as "gorgeous," which I have read a dozen times and still can't make sense of. But I learned something. The Melville essay is a long, dense, very difficult slog; he shines a light on a Jane Austen innovation; the pieces on Dostoevsky and Orwell are passionate and moving, and he is wonderful on Tolstoy. If you already value a particular author, he will give you additional cause and understanding to do so; if you don't, he'll give you something to make you cock your head and be glad you read that chapter anyway.

Wood himself loves, loves, LOVES adjectives, which endears him to me. A fifty-something headmaster as his boyhood school seems "fantastically antique" to his students, holding a burning-down match in his fingertips with "reptilian imperviousness." The Goldberg versions are described thus: "The first aria is cocky, exuberant, optimistic, vital, fun, sound-filled; the second aria is reflective, seasoned, wintry, grieving, silence-haunted." So, MFA pundits who decree you must get rid of your adjectives and adverbs, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Intelligent, challenging, varied - pick and choose, have some patience, and you will be rewarded, and sometimes bored. Still worth the trip.

[michal k-c · Rating 4 out of 5]

reading Wood will make you a better reader, simple as. i only actually agree with him like half the time and his temperament can be a bit too “English” for me on occasion but still, the man loves literature. if you want strict academic rigour you can go read Jameson (and you should read Jameson) but Wood is just fun to read even if you can get the insights elsewhere

[Greg_en · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm just going to go ahead and give anything James Wood writes five stars. I haven't been so impressed with a critic since I discovered Lionel Trilling in my youth. Yeah, and Wood is better!

[Nayeem Rather]

How does one read a work of fiction? James Wood, the engaging critic, takes us on a journey—through time, across cultures and languages—to seriously notice what writers want us to notice. Reading his essay on Chekhov compelled me to revisit the Russian master’s work, and what followed was an unexpected reward: the quiet pleasure of seeing how life itself is written.

Serious Noticing is a collection of essays and short commentaries on some of the most influential fiction writers of our time. With a tone that is both playful and deeply perceptive, Wood dissects what makes their fiction come alive,how sentences breathe, how detail turns into revelation, and how ordinary life acquires the weight of meaning.

For a young aspiring writer, Wood lays the foundation of what it truly means to write and, perhaps more importantly, how to read. His book reminds us that fiction is not merely to be consumed but to be noticed, line by line, gesture by gesture, until reading itself becomes a form of seeing.

[Kelsey Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

im just a James wood literary critic husband looking for her Claire messud fiction writer wife

[Veronica Ciastko · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a relief to read someone who loves reading as much as I do, and who can express just exactly why great writing is great. This book was a really valuable companion as I applied to graduate writing programs; I copied down four full pages of quotes about art, literature, and life. James Wood is so smart and precise and observant. I'd apply to Harvard (blech) just to take his classes.

[Martina (polveresucarta) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

[MJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

To read this collection of essays is to fall in love with reading literature! In the introduction, Wood likens the literary critic's task to "playing, to a friend, a piece of music you really love." And if Wood is a cover artist, I want to hear all of his renditions of songs more than the originals themselves. I want to dance my heart out to his covers and then return to the originals as a serious noticer, ready to take in the melodies, cadences, and key changes more acutely.

[Brian Caster · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite part of reading a good book critic's essays is that they often spur my interest in authors that I have read but maybe did not leave such a strong (or good at all) first impression. In this case, while reading Wood's essays, I bought another W.G. Sebald book, The Emigrants (I did not enjoy Austerlitz), and I will give The Adventures of Augie March another try (I did enjoy other Bellow novels, especially Herzog and Humboldt's Gift). His essays also reminded me of the amazing gifts of Jenny Erpenbeck (I've added Kairos to my library hold list) and that maybe I need to take more time with the work of Marilynne Robinson (I will finally read the second book in the Gilead series, Home--I have read the first and third, and mildly enjoyed them). I think I may have read some of these essays in another context, either when published in magazine form or in Wood's On Fiction, since I am sure that is how I discovered Ismail Kadare and Bohumil Hrabal.

[Eero · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Cavell writes: what I see is that (pointing to the object). But for that to communicate you have to see it too. Describing one's experience of art is itself a form of art; the burden of describing it is like the burden of producing it"

[Hank]

One of the only literary critics whose work I actively seek out. Wood writes for the New Yorker, so you can find a lot of his reviews there. Some of my favorites include the essay on Woolf, the elegy for Sebald, and the rhapsodic waxing on long sentences.

He's right about Paul Auster. (Sub-par postmodernism.)

He's half right about Zadie Smith. (Hysterical realism, sure; but isn't that the fun?)

He's wrong about Ishiguro. (The Buried Giant is a potent allegory, while the Unconsoled is a comic masterpiece.)

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Getcher advance notice on the new James Wood collection! Hear ye hear ye!

https://www.the-american-interest.com...

[Wendy Liu · Rating 5 out of 5]

we are lucky to have him

[Casey · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a fuckin' crabapple.

[Ron Peters · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve always been a little so-so on Chekhov – a rotten thing to admit, I know, I know. “Well, they’re just lovely little vignettes, aren’t they? Not real stories,” I would gripe. And so, my friend Harry would stare at me, horror-struck, like I was some microcephalic monster. But Harry has always had enough snobbery for the both of us.

James Wood is my kind of literary critic. He has strong academic credentials and sufficient gravitas that you are, at least, willing to listen seriously to what he has to say. But his writing style is far more accessible and journalistic than most critics today. More like a very smart writer in Rolling Stone magazine. Or like listening to a cultured friend’s friend at dinner over wine.

So, at a bare minimum, Wood has convinced me to give Chekhov another try, largely based on the case he makes for artistically selected detail. I won’t explain. Read either or both of his essays: “What Chekhov Meant by Life,” or “Serious Noticing.”

So, he taught me a thing or two, made me think, gave me new ways of looking at some things, and enhanced my understanding and appreciation of some excellent literature. Did I agree with him 100% of the time? Certainly not. But what more could you want from any literary critic?

[Zac · Rating 5 out of 5]

"No, what is so moving in this novel [To the Lighthouse] is the spreading apprehension that the very vagueness of that invisible "something" that we are all seeking beyond the senses makes it mystical, pushes it beyond the reach of aesthetic form. The indefinability of the "something" is what goads Woolf's art into art; but the indefinability is also what exhausts that art. It encourages the very quest it cannot satisfy. This contradictory belief, that truth can be looked for but cannot be looked at, and that art is the greatest way of giving form to this contradiction, is what moves us so intensely. At her best, Woolf is not an "impressionist," because she has a metaphysician's interest in impressions. Her work is full of the sense that art is an "incessant unmethodical pacing" around meaning rather than toward it, and that this continuous circling is art's straightest metaphysical path. It is all art can do, and it is everything art can do. And finlike, the meaning moves on, partially palpable, always hiding its larger invisibilities." (425)

[Cynthia Abraham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love, love, LOVE this collection of essays by James Wood! His joy of reading is infectious. He takes "writing through" (as opposed to "writing about") books to vertiginous heights.
I had a smidge of trepidation prior to reading some of his essays on my favorite authors but his criticisms are spot-on!
Wood lauds Cormac McCarthy's prose but also appropriately indicates that at times, McCarthy's passages on theodicy are misplaced.
Wood's essays on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are the highlights!
In his essay on Tolstoy, he astutely notes the tragedy of Anna Karenina being the only non-solipsistic character in the novel who is at the end, reluctantly rendered solipsisistic in a new world in which she is alone. This is an unfortunate consequence of the times.
His essay on Dostoevsky and the duality in man of pride and humility in Dostoevsky's novels is equally brilliant.
I would surmise that Wood would think his essay on Chekhov though is the crown jewel in this collection given his view of Chekhov as a "serious noticer."

[Jacob biscuits · Rating 2 out of 5]

It makes sense that Susan Sontag admired James Wood’s criticism. They’re both essentially failed artists fuelled by nothing more than a smug bitterness they’ve tricked themselves into viewing as scrutiny - which is all too easy to dress up as good critical superficiality. James Wood hasn’t had a single new idea about literature or about any writer. All he can offer is a pronouncement, veiled of course, as to whether or not a book appealed to his personal taste. It’s beyond him to explain any further than that. He dismisses things as stupid or irrelevant or derivative - on what charge? He doesn’t say. What business did he really have, after all, deeming the young Zadie Smith’s debut novel “hysterical”? For God’s sake. That’s the tone that commands his criticism - how do people not find it ultimately a bit pathetic?

[Fergus Menner]

Really special and illuminating. Wood, more than anyone working today, "speaks to fiction in its own accent"; this is evident in his impressive control of metaphor, which functions in this work as a metonym of his overall argument. He puts it gracefully in the Melville essay: metaphor is "the whole of the imaginative fictional process in one move." This is criticism that makes the case for the novel, of course, and for fictionality, but it also, perhaps more importantly, is criticism that makes the case for criticism, that speaks to criticism in its own language, the language of fiction, breaks down the invented writer-critic barrier and brings us closer, via that same "incessant unmethodical pacing", as Woolf had it, to the paradoxically unreachable mystic truth.

[Florence ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

“When I write about a novel or a writer, I am essentially bearing witness. I’m describing an experience and trying to stimulate in the reader an experience of that experience. Henry James called the critic’s task ‘heroically vicarious.’ Most of the time it feels pretty unheroic, to be honest; but it certainly feels vicarious. It’s like playing, to a friend, a piece of music you really love. There is that moment when you stand next to this person, hopeful and intense as you anxiously scan your friend’s face, to see if he or she is hearing the same thing you heard.”

[Sagar Castleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

my god every single essay in this book is brilliant. he sees through every book with perfect clarity and understands exactly what makes it good or bad. when he was talking about writers i had read i was always like "that's it, that's exactly it." but who knew that you could just identify and explain what's special about virginia woolf in 20 pages? i'm gonna want his take on every book i read for a long long time

[Austin · Rating 3 out of 5]

When it's good, it's REALLY good (the Austen, Melville, Keith Moon, Auster, home, intro, and "hysterical realism" essays) but when Wood goes deep on a subject, he refuses to hold the reader's hand. If you don't know the source material, good luck finding your way through!