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James Wood is often dubbed "the best literary critic of his generation." Like the critic Harold Bloom, Wood most often seems to advocate an aesthetic approach to literature, rather than more ideologically-driven trends in academic literary criticism. In an interview with the Harvard Crimson, Wood explains that the "novel exists to be affecting...to shake us profoundly. When we’re rigorous about feeling, we're honoring that." The reader, then, should approach the text as a writer, "which is [about] making aesthetic judgments."
Wood is noted for coining the genre term hysterical realism, which he uses to denote the comtemporary conception of the "big, ambitious novel" that pursues vitality "at all costs." In response to an essay Wood wrote on the subject, author Zadie Smith described hysterical realism as a "painfully accurate term for the sort of overblown, manic prose to be found in novels like my own White Teeth…"
Wood is the author of two books of criticism, The Broken Estate: Essays on Literature and Belief (Modern Library, 2000) and The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004), and a novel, The Book Against God (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2003). Additionally, Wood has written introductions to Selected Stories of D.H. Lawrence (Modern Library, 1999), Collected Stories of Saul BellowSaul Bellow (born June 10, 1915), acclaimed North American-Jewish writer, won the Nobel prize for literature in 1976 and is best known for writing novels which investigate isolation, spiritual dissociation and the possibilities of human awakening. While o (Penguin, 2002), The Golovlyov Family by Mikhail Evgrafovich SaltykovMikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin ( 15 January 1826 28 April 1889 OS. 27 January 1826 10 May 1889 NS) was a Russian satirist. He was born on his father’s estate in the province of Tula. His early education was completely neglected, and his youth, owing to the se (2001), and The Heart of the Matter by Graham GreeneThis article is about the writer Graham Greene. For the Canadian actor, see Graham Greene (actor). Graham Greene ( October 2, 1904 April 3, 1991) was a prolific English novelist. Life and work He was born Henry Graham Greene in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, (Penguin, 2004)
Wood has taught at Kenyon CollegeKenyon College is a private liberal arts college founded in Gambier, Ohio in 1824, by Episcopal Bishop Philander Chase. It is Ohio's oldest private institute of higher learning. Originally an all-male institution aligned with the Episcopal Church, it beca in Gambier, Ohio, and Harvard UniversityHarvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. It was founded on September 8, 1636 by a vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, making it the oldest post-secondary s. He is married to American novelist Claire Messud and lives in Washington, DC and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
James Wood on hysterical realism:
Essays and reviews by James Wood:
Interview:
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