I have been catching up on my reading of Slate and came across this gem of an article by Judith Shulevitz titled, The care and feeding of fiction. Shulevitz has written a quasi-review of James Wood’s new book How fiction works and makes we want to read the book itself. Of the many interesting ideas in the article is this wonderful quote that I just had to share:

There is only one recipe—to care a great deal for the cookery — Henry James

A statement that ought to apply to all that we do…

As an aside, it is clear from this essay by Woods that he has a “take no prisoners” style of writing. His take down of most magical realistic writing (which is calls hysterical realism), including Rushdie, Pynchon, DeLillo and Foster Wallace is a must read. This just makes me more confident that the book will be a wonderfully, idiosyncratic, engaging and intelligent read.