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Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative

Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative

Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative
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Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative Paperback - 2019

by Alison, Jane

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This seller has earned a 3.62 of 5 Stars rating from internet customers.
3.62 / 5 (8 total reviews)
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Details

  • Title Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative
  • Author Alison, Jane
  • Binding Paperback
  • Condition New
  • Pages 272
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Catapult
  • Publication date 2019-04-02
  • Illustrated Yes
  • Features Bibliography, Illustrated
  • Bookseller's Inventory # OTF-S-9781948226134
  • ISBN 9781948226134 / 1948226138
  • Weight 0.7 lbs (0.32 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 in (20.83 x 13.72 x 2.29 cm)
  • Category Literature - Classics / Criticism
  • Library of Congress subjects Narration (Rhetoric), Discourse analysis, Narrative
  • Library of Congress Catalogue Number 2018950157
  • Dewey Decimal Code 808.036
  • Quantity available 27

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Reader reviews for Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative

Review summary

This seller has earned a 3.62 of 5 Stars rating from internet customers.
3.62 / 5 (8 total reviews)

Reviewers found Jane Alison’s study of narrative form provocative and well-sourced, praising its range of examples and encouragement to experiment, yet disputing its challenge to linear storytelling. They argued that stories inherently move through time and transition, making Freytag’s pyramid still relevant; innovation is welcome, they contended, but not at odds with human narrative instincts.

Readers say this book is:
provocativeinsightfulthoughtfulstimulatingnuancedcontentiousskepticalchallengingwell-illustrateddebate-inviting

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From the publisher

"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." ―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 Garca Mrquez, 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.

Media reviews

Citations

  • Kirkus Reviews, 02/01/2019, Page 0
  • Publishers Weekly, 01/07/2019, Page 0
  • Shelf Awareness, 04/02/2019, Page 0

About the author

JANE ALISON is the author of a memoir, The Sisters Antipodes, and four novels: The Love-Artist, The Marriage of the Sea, Natives and Exotics, and Nine Island. She is also the translator of Ovid's stories of sexual transformation, Change Me. She is professor of creative writing at the University of Virginia and lives in Charlottesville. Find out more at www.janealison.com.

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