Understanding Fiction (3rd Edition)

Rating:
Summary: A Good Book For Understanding Formalist Criticism
Review: I am taking a college English class which includes an introduction to literary criticism. We were not assigned this book as our textbook, but I had occasion to write an essay recently for class and referred to this book as one of my secondary sources. This book is an excellent resource book. It is very clearly written. The topics covered are "The Intention of Fiction", "How Plot Reveals", "What Character Reveals", "What Theme Reveals", "Stories for Study", and "Fiction and Human Experience: How Four Stories Came to Be Written." It uses many, many, stories written by famous authors to illustrate each topic. I feel certain one could find at least one story from just about any textbook used in an English 101 class. Even if you are not studying literary criticism explicitly, this book is a good resource just for understanding how to look for things like theme and plot, just to name a few. It's a good book to get you thinking the way you need to think in order to write a paper. Even though I don't plan to major in English, I know I will use this book again and hopefully Amazon.comwill be able to find it for me!