My essay on James Wood as literary critic is now available in the new issue of The Quarterly Conversation:
. . .The comedy of manners has certainly played an important part in the development of fiction (and many very good writers have participated in the genre), but admirers of James Wood’s book reviews should realize that the judgments he makes as a reviewer are rooted in his preference for this sort of fiction and should remember he has devoted most of two books to the attempt to critically justify the view that it represents not just a significant achievement in the art of the novel but is in fact the settled form in which that art can be realized, that the literary history of the novel in effect comes to an end with its ascension.
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