Preface
PART ONE
Reviewing the Reviews 1
New York Reviews of Books 1
Middling Intelligibility 6
Problems in the Story Line 17
Bridging the Gap 22
Theory About Practice 22
Serious Criticism 26
Critical Assumptions 41
Aesthetic Analysis 41
The Biographical Fallacy 50
PART TWO
John Dewey's Art as Experience 56
Aesthetic Experience 56
Means and Ends 62
Old and New 71
The Role of Criticism 80
Deep Reading 87
PART THREE
Experimental Fiction 95
Prologue 95
Context 98
First Principles 112
Practice 125
Alain Robbe-Grillet 160
PART FOUR
Realism 183
Realisms 183
Flaubert's Children 199
Realists 214
PART FIVE
The Elements of Fiction 240
Beyond Story 240
Narrative Strategies 251
Point of View 274
Style 305
PART SIX
Saying Something 329
Critiquing American Society 329
Subversive 336
The Big Dialogue 346
Very Funny 355
PART SEVEN
The Profession of Literature 362
Literary Study 362
The "Book Business" 374
PART EIGHT
Art and Culture 394
Audience 394
Affirmation 405
Canonical 416
PART NINE
Critics 429
Morris Dickstein and Historical Criticism 429
James Wood 455
Harold Bloom 455
Susan Sontag 467
