James Wood (critic)

James Wood (born 1 November 1965) is an English-American literary critic, essayist and novelist. As of 2014, he is Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. Quotes The hypocrite may serve, among other things, as a deformed ambassador of the truth. By so obviously misrepresenting the truth, he enables us to trace its smothered outlines. The Golovlyov Family by Shchedrin in Edwin Frank (ed.), Unknown Masterpieces (2003), p. 109 The Irresponsible Self (2004) The big contemporary novel is a perpetual motion machine that appears to have been embarrassed into velocity. It seems to want to abolish stillness, as if ashamed of silence. Stories and sub-stories sprout on every page, and these novels continually flourish their glamorous congestion. Hysterical realism An excess of storytelling has become the contemporary way of shrouding, in majesty, a lack; it is the Sun King principle. The lack is the human. Hysterical realism External links Category:Academics from the United Kingdom Category:Novelists from England Category:Essayists from England Category:1965 births Category:Living people Category:Literary critics Category:University of Cambridge alumni