Anyone who loves reading contemporary literature will find it enlightening.moreġ69th book of 2020. I'm sure this book will make me a better reader, more willing to let a story tell itself even when it doesn't take the expected aristotelian storytelling shape. It reminds me of the best art criticism: it allows me to see/read better, with greater appreciation for what I'm experiencing as I read. She observes the way the words behave on the page and shows me patterns I was only dimly aware of before. She excerpts many works of recent fiction. Alison observes and categorizes the many ways fiction writers structure their work, from word choice, to sentence, to paragraph, to chapter, to finished structure. More, it's the "how to be a better reader of contemporary lit" book I've been waiting and searching for. Meander, Spiral, Explode isn't criticism per se.
"Literary Criticism" sounds wrong, actually. She obser A thrilling work of literary criticism from a writer who very clearly loves to read. It will appeal to serious readers and writers alike.moreĪ thrilling work of literary criticism from a writer who very clearly loves to read. It is a liberating manifesto that says, Let’s leave the outdated modes behind and, in thinking of new modes, bring feeling back to experimentation. Meander, Spiral, Explode is a singular and brilliant elucidation of literary strategies that also brings high spirits and wit to its original conclusions.
Other writers of nonlinear prose considered in her “museum of specimens” include Nicholson Baker, Anne Carson, Marguerite Duras, Jamaica Kincaid, Clarice Lispector, Gabriel García Márquez, Susan Minot, David Mitchell, Caryl Phillips, and Mary Robison. Sebald’s The 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. But: something that swells and tautens until climax, then collapses? Bit masculo-sexual, no? So many other patterns run through nature, tracing other deep motions in life. Alison’s manifesto for new modes of narrative will appeal to serious readers and writers alike.Īs 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. The stories she loves most follow other organic patterns found in nature―spirals, meanders, and explosions, among others.
As Jane Novelist and writing teacher Jane Alison illuminates the many shapes other than the usual wavelike “narrative arc” that can move fiction forward. Alison’s manifesto for new modes of narrative will appeal to serious readers and writers alike. Novelist and writing teacher Jane Alison illuminates the many shapes other than the usual wavelike “narrative arc” that can move fiction forward.
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