The Broken Estate: Essays on Literature and Belief

In a disparaging essay on George Steiner laced with caustic asides (Steiner's obsessive "tic of the consumer's indefinite article") and penetrating insight (Steiner's "real presence," for Wood, tries to straddle the two chairs of Faith and Nihilism, collapsing between them in the process), Wood corrects Steiner's misappropriation of Pascal's wager. The reference to Pascal was not lost on this reader: James Wood is a tremendous critic who writes like a "machine infernale."While polemos is a frequent pose for Wood, I never felt that it was a pose taken serendipitously, arguing for the sake of arguing. One can plainly see the struggle in his lines, the wrestling with both preferred authors (Woolf, Sebald, Mann) and roguish ones (Updike, Pynchon, Morrison, DeLillo, Steiner). In that sense, he remains the heir to the Johnsonian legacy of encomiastic criticism. Though I may disagree at times, I am grateful for Wood's brave and necessary polemics. In fact, so impressed am I with Wood's essays that I will often secretly read The New Republic (which I in general find distateful) solely for his contributions. The New Republic is lucky to have him; we are lucky to be living at a time when he is writing.

This is that most magical of books, the one that seems to be told by your most easily brilliant friend in the wit and intimacy of late night talks about life, love, God, art, V. Woolf's feminism, Matthew Arnold's condescending secularism, Chekhov's godlessness -- everything, in other words -- that feels suddenly VITALLY important. Wonderful. Beautifully written. Necessary.

Good sense of humor on serious subjects. The author describes what fiction does and why we should care about it. Maybe he's a critic, but he's really just someone who thinks and writes clearly about literature. Really articulate. Lots of verbal flourish. The Woolf and Sebald essays are keepers, sort of like Fiction 101.

Wood weilds words with rapier accuracy. This is criticism at its most entirely satisfying. The essays in this volume reignite the reader's fire; reintroducing authors who are old but perhaps long-neglected friends, forcing reconsideration of writers one has never admired. Full of fresh insight and delicious pleasures.

James Wood is a critic of the highest order, whose passionate engagement with literature is evident in every single essay in this magnificent collection. His sentences are gorgeous, his readings of an inspiring astuteness, and his metaphors scintillating. He is opinionated, to be sure; but even if you disagree with some of his judgments, you will feel only inspired and invigorated by these essays. If you care deeply about literature, you can't afford not to read this book.