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    Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative
    Unavailable
    Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative
    Unavailable
    Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative
    Ebook199 pages3 hours

    Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative

    By Jane Alison

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019

    One of Poets & Writers' Best Books for Writers

    “[A] boundlessly inventive look at narrative form . . . filled with clarity and wit, underlain with formidable erudition.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

    "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 It is a liberating manifesto that says, Let’s leave the outdated modes behind and, in thinking of new modes, bring feeling back to experimentation.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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCatapult
    Release dateApr 1, 2019
    ISBN9781948226141
    Unavailable
    Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative
    Author

    Jane Alison

    Jane Alison is the author of The Love-Artist and The Marriage of the Sea. She lives in Germany.

    Read more from Jane Alison

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    Reviews for Meander, Spiral, Explode

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Delightful to read, and I applaud the core idea (traditional building arc is not the only or best narrative structure). Felt like it was reaching pretty far for a few of its points, and given the formal nature of a few of its premises, would have loved to have seen more in-depth exploration.

      Would recommend to anyone who loves the craft/theoretical aspects of reading/writing; this book doesn't come across as dryly academic.