- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Harper Perennial; Revised edition (Sep 1 1988)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0060915447
- ISBN-13: 978-0060915445
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 13.5 x 1.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 181 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #527,604 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"Living by Fiction is a stimulating book, one of those in which quality of thought and felicity of prose seem consequences of one another." -- Vance Bourjaily, New York Times Book Review
"Everyone who timidly, bombastically, reverently, scholastically--even fraudulently--essays to 'live the life of the mind' should read this book. It's elegant and classy, like caviar and champagne, and like these two items, it's over much too soon." -- Carolyn See, Los Angeles Times
"Stimulating." -- -- New York Times Book Review
"Everyone who timidly, bombastically, reverently, scholastically--even fraudulently--essays to 'live the life of the mind' should read this book. It's elegant and classy, like caviar and champagne, and like these two items, it's over much too soon." -- Carolyn See, Los Angeles Times
"Stimulating." -- -- New York Times Book Review
Book Description
Living by Fiction is written for--and dedicated to--people who love literature. Dealing with writers such as Nabokov, Barth, Coover, Pynchon, Borges, GarcÍa MÁrquez, Beckett, and Calvino, Annie Dillard shows why fiction matters and how it can reveal more of the modern world and modern thinking than all the academic sciences combined. Like Joyce Cary's Art and Reality, this is a book by a writer on the issues raised by the art of literature. Readers of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Holy the Firm will recognize Dillard's vivid writing, her humor, and the lively way in which she tackles the urgent questions of meaning in experience itself.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Many contemporaries write a fiction intended to achieve traditional kinds of excellence. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Many contemporaries write a fiction intended to achieve traditional kinds of excellence. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Living with Art,
By
This review is from: Living Fictn Reissue (Paperback)
In Living by Fiction, Annie Dillard begins her introduction with, ï¿This is, ultimately, a book about the world.ï¿ I canï¿t be sure of what youï¿re thinking but I wrote ï¿holy crapï¿ in my margin. She later goes on to explain, ï¿Fiction can deal with all the worldï¿s objects and ideas together, with the breadth of human experience in time and space; it can deal with things the limited disciplines of thought either ignore completely or destroy by methodological caution, our most pressing concerns: personality, family, death, love, time, spirit, goodness, evil, destiny, beauty, will.ï¿ Itï¿s characteristic of Dillard to deliver a surprising assertion throughout her book, which peaks enough interest that the reader is able to grapple with the theory-based arguments and eventually make oneï¿s way to beautiful, gentle explanations that are often times hard to disagree with since she covers many perspectives. Dillardï¿s strength lies in her ability to intertwine theory with her own creativity in writing, making metaphors out of her arguments: ï¿Science works the way a tightrope walker works: by not looking at its feet. As soon as it looks at its feet, it realizes that itï¿s operating in midair.ï¿ This is what we would have imagined a theory book to read like years ago, if a creative writer had written it.Dillardï¿s main concerns in her book deal with modernism and its place in the contemporary world, the never-ending argument of what constitutes art, and her caution not to commit to any absolutes in the world of knowledge and intelligence. This is the closest that a reader could get to having a conversation with a theorist. At one point when Dillard is discussing the marketplace and Melvilleï¿s essay, The Encantadas, and how itï¿s always been classified as fiction, she asks as though sheï¿s sitting with us listening to the same discussion, ï¿Is it because Melville usually wrote fiction? Is it because it is a narrative? Is it because the characters are colorful? Is it because it is good? Or is it because much of it is hearsay?ï¿ Dillard is reassuring (or disconcertingï¿depending on how you view the literary world) in her text that there are no absolutes to how fiction fits in the world, how art movements change, or how meaning is made. This book probably addresses a more advanced writer in its focus on theory and non-focus on craft.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Glorious - and crucial - Dillard,
By Nathan "nathan" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Living Fictn Reissue (Paperback)
I think there are few books about literature as important, erudite, witty or insightful as this one. In typical Dillard fashion, Annie Dillard begins with a rather narrow focus - an interpretation of "contemporary modernist" fiction (a term she hopes will not catch on because it is so clumsy) - the works of Nabokov, John Barth, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Italo Calvino, Robbe-Grillet and Beckett - and then she proceeds to expand her inquiry to include, firstly, the finding of meaning in literature and, ultimately, the finding of meaning in the world. These questions - does the world have meaning? do we find meaning or make it up? how do we best interpret the world? - are questions which dog "Living by Fiction"; rather than gloss over them Dillard investigates them. And she comes up with some surprising - and glorious - ideas. Ultimately, she makes a challenging and vital case for the importance of literature in terms of making meaning out of the world. This is, truly, critiscm at its best. I have no doubt that Dillard's reading of the contemporary modernists will be regarded as seminal in years to come. So for anyone even remotely interested in contemporary literary critiscm, this book is crucial. But the wider scope of the book is one should fascinate anyone who cares about literature and meaning. These are burning questions that Dillard asks. If you've never read Dillard's other works - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Holy the Firm, etc. - this is a wonderful introduction into her particular talents and methods. If you're a Dillard fan and you haven't read this one, you are really missing out.
5.0 out of 5 stars
stimulating and thought-provoking,
By A Customer
This review is from: Living Fictn Reissue (Paperback)
I thought Ms. Dillard distinguished herself with this literary piece of literary criticism. She got into some pretty deep and convoluted places with this book, but I felt that every point was well-made and well-taken. I feel the book is an education in itself. Loved it!
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