English 168d, "Postwar American and British Fiction"

Welcome to Postwar (nothing to do with war) British (does Trinidad count as British?) and American (Russian-American, that is) Fiction. In a fair world, this course would be called "Books that James Wood Likes." At Harvard we call it English 168d.

English 168d operates on a different wavelength from other Harvard courses. Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism James Wood—Harvard-speak for "I don't have a Ph.D."—James Wood does not assign texts. To assign, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is to "allocate a task or duty." James Wood does nothing of the sort. He simply suggests reading, then—five minutes into every class—asks whether students have found the time to complete it. When students sheepishly admit that they just couldn't fit those hundred pages into their busy schedules, he recommends that they read the novel over Spring Break.

"It really is a lovely book," he says in Nabokov's defense.

The course's lax atmosphere extends to Wood's lectures, which are full of pithy asides and sexy Briticisms. (Nota bene: to understand the jokes, you needn't do the reading.) If you feel compelled to read the novels, you'll find some jewels that most English concentrators have never heard of. Among the best are Henry Green's “Loving” and Muriel Spark's “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” Unfortunately, Wood spends almost a month on “Atonement” by Ian McEwan, which is taught in at least three English department courses. But for your two short papers—a grand total of about eight double-spaced pages—you could easily write on something else.