MEANDER SPIRAL EXPLODE CATAPULT MANUAL

A thought-provoking manual for writers, critics, and casual readers alike.' - The Atlantic, One of the Best Books of the Year 'You don’t have to be a professional writer to enjoy novelist Jane Alison’s brilliant new craft guide Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative, published by Catapult Press. It is a special kind of literary criticism.' ―Katy Waldman, The New Yorker 'A playful, insightful taxonomy of narratives that while seeming to defy categorization, in fact take their innovative structures from patterns found in nature: fractals, cells, wavelets, and more. The fecundity of Alison’s writing is of a piece with her larger mission: to turn narrative theory into a supersaturated mindfuck of hedonistic extravaganza. Alison’s prose is potent and lush, her enthusiasm infectious.

One of her more seductive ideas is the notion of possible 'correlations between kinds of stories and certain patterns,' as when reflective first-person novels adopt the spiral. It will appeal to serious readers and writers alike.Ī Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019 | A Poets & Writers Best Books for Writers 'Alison’s close readings can be exhilarating. It is a liberating manifesto that says, Let’s leave the outdated modes behind and, in thinking of new modes, bring feeling back to experimentation.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, Gabriel García Márquez, Jamaica Kincaid, Clarice Lispector, Susan Minot, David Mitchell, Caryl Phillips, and Mary Robison.

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. 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. 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 A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019 | A Poets & Writers Best Books for Writers 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. 'How lovely to discover a book on the craft of writing that is also fun to read. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more.

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Meander spiral explode catapult