|
Product Description
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019
One of Poets & Writers' Best Books for Writers
"How lovely to discover a book on the craft of writing that is also fun to read. . . Alison asserts that the best stories follow patterns in nature, and by defining these new styles she offers writers the freedom to explore but with enough guidance to thrive." ―Maris Kreizman, Vulture
As Jane Alison writes in the introduction to her insightful and appealing book about the craft of writing: “For centuries there’s been one path through fiction we’re most likely to travel― one we’re actually told to follow―and that’s the dramatic arc: a situation arises, grows tense, reaches a peak, subsides . . . But something that swells and tautens until climax, then collapses? Bit masculosexual, no? So many other patterns run through nature, tracing other deep motions in life. Why not draw on them, too?”
W. G. Sebald’s Emigrants was the first novel to show Alison how forward momentum can be created by way of pattern, rather than the traditional arc― or, in nature, wave. Other writers of nonlinear prose considered in her “museum of specimens” include Nicholson Baker, Anne Carson, Marguerite Duras, Gabriel García Márquez, Jamaica Kincaid, Clarice Lispector, Susan Minot, David Mitchell, Caryl Phillips, and Mary Robison.
Meander, Spiral, Explode is a singular and brilliant elucidation of literary strategies that also brings high spirits and wit to its original conclusions. It is a liberating manifesto that says, Let’s leave the outdated modes behind and, in thinking of new modes, bring feeling back to experimentation. It will appeal to serious readers and writers alike.
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
- Cognitive Poetics: A New Introduction
- Writing the Other (Conversation Pieces) (Volume 8)
- How Dare We! Write: A Multicultural Creative Writing Discourse
- Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction
- The Art of Voice: Poetic Principles and Practice
- The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
- Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer's Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book
- Don't Read Poetry: A Book About How to Read Poems
- In the Dream House: A Memoir
- The Crying Book
*If this is not the "Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative" product you were looking for, you can check the other results by clicking this link. Details were last updated on Dec 21, 2024 22:40 +08.