How to Read Novels Like a Professor

A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form

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March 1, 2022 | History

How to Read Novels Like a Professor

A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form

First Edition
  • 3.0 (2 ratings) ·
  • 6 Want to read
  • 2 Have read

Of all the literary forms, the novel is arguably the most discussed...and fretted over. From Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote to the works of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and today's masters, the novel has grown with and adapted to changing societies and technologies, mixing tradition and innovation in every age throughout history.Thomas C. Foster — the sage and scholar who ingeniously led readers through the fascinating symbolic codes of great literature in his first book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor — now examines the grammar of the popular novel. Exploring how authors' choices about structure — point of view, narrative voice, first page, chapter construction, character emblems, and narrative (dis)continuity — create meaning and a special literary language, How to Read Novels Like a Professor shares the keys to this language with readers who want to get more insight, more understanding, and more pleasure from their reading.

Publish Date
Publisher
Harper Paperbacks
Language
English
Pages
312

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Edition Availability
Cover of: How to Read Novels Like a Professor
How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form
2009, HarperCollins Publishers
in English
Cover of: How to Read Novels Like a Professor
How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form
2008, HarperCollins Publishers
in English
Cover of: How to read novels like a professor
How to read novels like a professor
2008, Harper Paperbacks
in English - 1st ed.
Cover of: How to Read Novels Like a Professor
How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form
July 1, 2008, Harper Paperbacks
Paperback in English - First Edition
Cover of: How to Read Novels Like a Professor
How to Read Novels Like a Professor
2008, HarperCollins
Electronic resource in English
Cover of: How to Read Novels Like a Professor
How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form
2008, HarperCollins Publishers
in English
Cover of: How to Read Novels Like a Professor
How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form
2008, HarperCollins Publishers
in English
Cover of: How to Read Novels Like a Professor
How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form
2008, HarperCollins Publishers
in English

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Book Details


Table of Contents

Preface. Novel possibilities, or All Animals Aren't Pigs?
Page xiii
Introduction. Once Upon a Time: A short, Chaotic, and Entirely Idiosyncratic History of the Novel
Page 1
1. Pickup Lines and Open(ing) Seductions, or Why Novels Have First Pages
Page 21
2. You Can't Breathe Where the Air Is Clear
Page 37
3. Who's in Charge Here
Page 45
4. Never Trust a Narrator with a Speaking Part
Page 56
5. A Still, Small Voice (or a Great, Galumphing One)
Page 67
6. Men (and Women) Made out of Words, or My Pip Ain't Like Your Pip
Page 80
7. When Very bad people Happen to Good Novels
Page 89
8. Wrinkles in Time, or Chapters Just Might Matter
Page 99
9. Everywhere Is Just One Place
Page 109
10. Clarissa's Flowers
Page 117
11. Met-him=pike-hoses
Page 131
12. Life Sentences
Page 145
13. Drowning in the Stream of Consciousness
Page 160
14. The Light on Daisy's Dock
Page 172
15. Fiction About Fiction
Page 182
16. Source Codes and Recycle Bins
Page 197
Interlude. Read with Your Ears
Page 213
17. Improbabilities: Foundlings and Magi, Colonels and Boy Wizards
Page 227
18. What's the Big Idea - or Even the Small One?
Page 239
19. Who Broke My Novel?
Page 250
20. Untidy Endings
Page 264
21. History in the Novel/The Novel in History
Page 279
22. Conspiracy Theory
Page 291
Conclusion. The Never-Ending Journey
Page 303
Reading list. Criticism of the Novel
Page 309

Edition Notes

Copyright Date
2008

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
809.3 22
Library of Congress
PN3365 .F67 2008

Contributors

Cover artist
Mary Schuck

The Physical Object

Format
Paperback
Pagination
xviii, 312 p
Number of pages
312
Dimensions
8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL9952432M
ISBN 10
0061340405
ISBN 13
9780061340406
LCCN
2008001729
OCLC/WorldCat
190860169
Google
1i_AIAAACAAJ
oclc
190860169
Library Thing
5387420
Goodreads
2261882

Links outside Open Library

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History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON
March 1, 2022 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
August 14, 2020 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
July 22, 2019 Edited by MARC Bot remove fake subjects
July 14, 2017 Edited by Mek adding subject: Internet Archive Wishlist
December 10, 2009 Created by WorkBot add works page