I’ve admired James Wood’s essays for a couple of decades. Serious Noticing collects 510 pages of Wood’s “greatest hits” in one handy volume. My favorite essay in this collection is “Fun Stuff: Homage to Keith Moon.” Keith Moon was the talented drummer of The Who until he died in September of 1978 from an overdose of Heminevrin, a drug intended to treat or prevent symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. Wood loves Keith Moon’s wackiness–which earned him the monicker “Moon the Loon”–and is moved to take up the drums himself as a kid.
Wood moves on from rock drummers to serious writers like Chekhov, Bellow, Tolstoy, Roth, Auster, Orwell, Austen, Cormac McCarthy, Sebald, Dostoevsky, “Elena Ferrante,” Virginia Woolf, and Marilynne Robinson among others. My impressions of Wood after reading these essays is that Wood seemingly has read just about everything these writers have ever published. Plenty of details and sharp analysis feature into Wood’s essays. If you’re in the mood for some intelligent literary criticism, Serious Noticing is the place to find it. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION – 1
Fun stuff: homage to Keith Moon — 15
What Chekhov meant by life — 34
Serious noticing — 49
Saul Bellow’s comic style — 74
Anna Karenina and characterization — 91
Joseph Roth’s empire of signs — 109
Paul Auster’s shallowness — 129
Hysterical realism — 144
Bohumil Hrabal’s comic world — 164
George Orwell’s very English revolution — 179
Jane Austen’s heroic consciousness — 179
Cormac McCarthy’s the road — 207
Reality examined to the point of madness’: László Krasznahorkai — 240
Wounder and wounded — 254
On not going home — 270
Other side of silence: rereading W. G. Sebald — 294
Becoming them — 315
Don Quixote’s old and new testaments — 325
Dostoevsky’s god — 338
Helen Garner’s savage honesty — 358
All and the if: God and metaphor in Melville — 372
Elena Ferrante — 393
Virginia Woolf’s Mysticism — 407
Job existed: Primo Levi — 426
Marilynne Robinson — 447
Ismail Kadare — 458
Jenny Erpenbeck — 479
Packing my father-in-law’s library — 493
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS — 509
I’d guess that Wood is a bit weighty for pandemic reading, but I’ve been a NEW YORKER subscriber practically forever and a lot of his stuff appears there. He always has interesting things to say about virtually any subject. I do remember reading the essay on Keith Moon.
Michael, after I read Wood’s essay on Keith Moon, I had to break out my CD of THE WHO’S GREATEST HITS and listen to Moon bang away!
A bit OT:
I’ve subscribed to the New Yorker’s newsletter for many years and they often have interesting info.
And the cartoons plus the Borowitz Report are really funny – though sometimes it’s gallows humour.
So I’ll have to look for this author, thanks.
Wolf, as Michael pointed out, James Wood’s essays appear in THE NEW YORKER on a regular basis. And, I like THE NEW YORKER cartoons, too!
I wonder if I could read a lot of this from the New Yorker archives. I am going to check. I have had a sub since I was 20.
Patti, plenty of James Woods essays appear in THE NEW YORKER. I’m impressed that you’ve been such a loyal subscriber over the decades!
I see several people who interest me on the list – Chekhov, Orwell, Ferrante, etc. However, I prefer these essay collections when they are 250-300 pages. Usually, if the book is 500 pages, I will end up just skipping around to the people I am most interested in and leaving the rest unread.
Jeff, I’m guessing SERIOUS NOTICING might be a “summing up” collection for James Wood. Wood has been at the literary critic game for decades. These essays show Wood at the top of his game.
Not only is Wood an excellent literary critic, he’s married to a very fine novelist, Claire Messud.
Michael, I have a couple books by Claire Messud on my shelves. Time to read one!