How to Reread a Novel

A novel is among the most intricate of human creations, the result of thousands of choices and decisions. In How to Reread a Novel, Matthew Clark explicates the intricacies of fiction writing through practical analysis of the resources of narration, demystifying some of the tools novelists use to build worlds.Drawing on classical philology, the rhetorical tradition, and recent approaches to narratology, Clark explores reading fiction as a complex experience of perception, cognition, and emotion, in which the writer of a narrative attempts to create and control the experience of the reader through the deployment of narrative techniques. Texts examined range from the Iliad and the Odyssey to contemporary literature, including detailed discussions of novels by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Henry James, and Raymond Chandler, as Clark investigates fundamental methodologies of narrative storytelling and the effects they employ to form beauty and meaning.By exploring some of the central techniques of narrative composition, How to Reread a Novel helps uncover subtleties in a text that may be missed on a first reading, encouraging readers to go beyond the surface to see what creates the unique experience of reading fiction.

In this refreshingly down-to-earth and approachable book, Matthew Clark focuses on the handling of rhetorical figures and narrative situations in a wide range of authors from Homer to Toni Morrison, revealing in detail the mechanisms by which literary effects are created. Lucidly written, patiently argued, and deeply grounded in a lifetime of literary experience, How to Reread a Novel can change the way we read, amplifying both our understanding and our pleasure." - Peter J. Rabinowitz, author of Before Reading: Narrative Conventions and the Politics of Interpretation

Matthew Clark is professor emeritus and senior scholar at York University in Toronto. His previous books include Narrative Structures and the Language of the Self and A Matter of Style: On Writing and Technique.