by John Gardner
"What the beginning writer needs, discouraging as it may be to hear, is not a set of rules but mastery—among other things, mastery of the art of breaking so-called rules." Gardner, the late novelist, used the material in this book for many years at the various universities where he taught creative writing. Some chapter titles describe the content: "Notes on Literary-Aesthetic Theory"; "Aesthetic Law and Artistic Mystery"; "Basic Skills, Genre, and Fiction as Dream"; "Jazzing Around"; "Notes on the Fictional Process: Common Errors, Technique and Plotting." In the course of his discussion, Gardner provides a splendid reading list for would-be writers: It includes Moby Dick, Hamlet, The Seagull, Iliad, Odyssey, Anna Karenina, Under the Volcano, Don Quixote, Beowulf (which inspired Gardner's own Grendel), Kobo Abe's The Ruined Map and other classics. He also comments on the work of such contemporary writers as John Updike, Donald Barthelme, John Barth, Robert Coover and Isak Dinesen. Gardner's On Becoming a Novelist, published last year, was for inspiration. The Art of Fiction is nuts and bolts. (Knopf, $13.95)
Your Reaction
