Using William Golding's Lord of the Flies and other classic books as examples, he shows the many ways in which revision is useful and editors are indispensable. How does a great author grab a reader, give a character life, or handle sex scenes? Cohen relates how many notable writers have grappled with character, point of view, and dialogue, as well as the element of rhythm.
He draws on plentiful advice from past and present literary titans, including Stephen King, Virginia Woolf, Salman Rushdie, D.H. In a scintillating tour d’horizon, Cohen lays bare the tricks, motivations, and techniques of the literary greats, revealing their obsessions and flaws and how we can learn from them along the way.Ĭohen (Chasing the Sun) writes an elegant, chatty how-to book on writing well, using the lessons of many of the world's best writers. Veteran editor and author Richard Cohen takes us on an engrossing journey into the lives and minds of the world’s greatest writers, from Honoré de Balzac and George Eliot to Virginia Woolf and Zadie Smith-with a few mischievous detours to visit Tolstoy along the way. “Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” How then to bring characters to life, find a voice, kill your darlings, or run that most challenging of literary gauntlets, writing a sex scene? What made Nabokov choose the name Lolita? Why did Fitzgerald use firstperson narration in The Great Gatsby ? How did Kerouac, who raged against revision, finally come to revise On the Road ? “There are three rules for writing a novel,” Somerset Maugham is said to have said. I have never annotated a book so fiercely.”-Hilary Mantel
It didn’t make me more Russian, but it fired up my imagination.
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