Book review: How to Read Novels Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster

The forty-fourth book I read in 2017 was How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form by Thomas C. Foster.  Having read his approach to literature in general, I decided to look into a more specialized work.

Ultimately, however, I felt that the previous work was more helpful.  Foster seemed somewhat hamstrung by the necessity not simply to repeat himself so the subject matter of How to Read Literature Like a Professor is not broached, no matter how much of it may be applicable to the novel. 

Foster lists eighteen things about a novel which can be gleaned from the first page or two (style, tone, mood, narrative attitude, time frame, time management, place, motif, theme, irony, rhythm, pace, expectations, character and instructions on how to read the novel -- and if you think some of those overlap with each other, you're not alone).  He lists points of view (third person omniscient, third person limited, third person objective, stream of consciousness, second person, first person central, and first person secondary). 

And then he just kind of ... meanders.  Many of the chapters, to me, seem more like meditations on particular novels he likes than tools applicable to many novels.  As such, I found this book less valuable than his previous work.