When it comes to reading I am rather slow, both mechanically
and intellectually. I am often conscious of reading in a superficial and
non-analytical way, although clearly there is a difference between reading for
pleasure, entertainment and relaxation and reading as an active process of
discovery, enlightenment and challenge. Writers need to be readers and I
recently felt in need of some kind of ‘refresher’. So I followed one of the
free courses offered by FutureLearn, called How
to Read a Novel, https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/how-to-read-a-novel#section-overview
at which a few of my friends laughed and commented. ‘Don’t
you know how to do that already!’
What attracted me to the course was the fact that it
involved no cost, was online and allowed participants to do as much or as
little as they pleased. Also, and more importantly it featured four novels and
two writers I had never heard of, but which were shortlisted for the James Tait
Black fiction prize 2017: C. E. Morgan’s The Sport of Kings, Garth
Greenwell’s What Belongs to You, Eimear
McBride’s The
Lesser Bohemians, and Jo Baker’s A Country Road, A Tree. These were
books I would never have chosen to read, (ranging as they did from a large
American ‘saga’ type novel, to an erotic gay work) but guided by the excellent
presentations by the course leader (Dr Alex Lawrie, University of Edinburgh),
short articles and interviews with the writers, I was able to appreciate, if
not to like, the particular qualities of each book.
The course took a fairly standard approach to the study of
fiction, by considering the elements of plot, characterisation, dialogue and
setting, but I liked being reminded of these basic ingredients and found the
extracts used to elucidate them revealing. Whatever else the books did for
other readers, for me they provoked a response and triggered some important
questioning around the use of the certain techniques in fictional writing.
Participants (from anywhere in the world) were invited to comment and answer
questions at certain points in the course. Some of these offered very useful
insights too. Overall, I found this course a refreshing and stimulating
experience and I was also motivated to experiment with different techniques in
my own writing.
