It is a matter of some moment when a distinguished and dispassionate critic such as Frank Kermode…offers what he calls a ‘recuperative’ response to contemporary literary criticism… Through a careful analysis of authors ranging from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to Joseph Conrad and writers of detective fiction, he demonstrates in this book what can be gained, and what discarded, from all the fury of contemporary criticism… Here is a badly needed voice of reason.—Los Angeles Times Book Review

The middle ground of serious criticism has so far found its clearest, most wide-ranging advocate in Kermode, and his new book…is an important one—ecumenical, level, acute.—Kirkus Reviews

The Art of Telling is a brilliant and well-articulated presentation of Kermode’s argument about how to read a narrative. Kermode writes with amazing ease and grace, but these pleasures of reading him should not obscure the tough-minded flexibility with which he circles around a novel or a theoretical position, assimilating, questioning, modifying, working out his own stance. There can be no doubt that he is one of our best critics.—J. Hillis Miller