What did James Wood ever do for you?

Excellent article by Charles Finch on how James Wood indirectly drove him to improve his novel.  Like Finch, I wasn’t blown away by How Fiction Works, however much I rate Wood’s deep diving literary analysis skills.  Finch ponders both Wood’s weaknesses and his contribution to literature, the latter of which he identifies as a acute engagement with language as an marker for thought, expressed in the novel.  Heady stuff.