Customer Reviews

The Half-Known World: On Writing Fiction

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Unlike some of the other Amazon customers who have reviewed The Half-Known World, I have never been fortunate enough to be Robert Boswell's student, nor have I ever met him. But after reading the book, I understand some of the reasons for their praise and loyalty. These essays are not only well-written and therefore quite entertaining in their own right; they are also very useful.

To give one example, I was very taken with "On Omniscience," an essay about the uses of the omniscient point of view. Here is the provocation the essay wraps itself around: "Omniscience and half-knowledge would seem to be adversarial terms, but it turns out they're not." Boswell follows up with a list of "twelve planks in my platform on omniscience," which clearly and, so far as I can tell, for the first time in literary history clearly identify the parameters and possibilities of the omniscient point of view as clearly as they have been many times (in many ways, by many writers) been articulated for points of view limited to the consciousness of a single character.

For the reader of fiction, this is an interesting thing to think about, and it certainly enriches the process of reading stories rooted in omniscient strategies. But for the writer of fiction, this is a hugely useful analytic tool that can help the writer find the right form, the right voice, the right distance, and the right balance of characters in order to create organically a container and working method suitable for the story and thematic concerns of his or her project.

The only other contemporary writer I know who has grappled so helpfully with omniscience is Richard Russo, in an uncollected essay I can't find anywhere. But Boswell has done Russo one better, and I am grateful for what he has given his readers in "On Omniscience."

There are nine other essays in the book, all of them quite good, all of them deserving more space than an Amazon review allows. What I mean to do here, anyway, isn't to tell you everything about the book, but rather to whet your appetite a little, to do a little bit of consumer advocacy on behalf of The Half-Known World, which is worth your time and money, and then some.

I was fortunate to work with with Robert Boswell as a graduate student and know, first-hand, what a brilliant teacher he is. I've read or heard portions of a few of these lectures over the years and have been eagerly awaiting the publication of this book. I devoured it as soon as it came out, immediately began re-reading it, and will certainly include it as a text in the undergraduate and graduate fiction writing courses I teach. These essays--frequently funny, always provocative--deftly combine first-rate and lively analysis of classic and contemporary fiction with a master storyteller's understanding of craft and an artist's understanding of process. These essays fall squarely in the tradition of books by brilliant writers--Henry James, E. M. Forster, Flannery O'Connor, Charles Baxter come to mind--who know how to excavate and articulate the mysteries of the art of fiction in a way that is enlightening, witty, and, quite frankly, deeply moving. If you're a serious reader of fiction or a writer of it, buy this book. It might very well, as the title of the last essay suggests, change your life.

This book is a fresh narrative from one of the best writers in America today. His fiction is spot-on and breathtaking. Boswell teaches in the Warren Wilson MFA Writing Program, and he does a fine job of taking you with him to explore what makes for great writing. It is almost like you are in class with him and you are listening to his views on writing. His book resonates with all writers, beginning or otherwise. This is a great "go-to" book for reference when the writer in you gets bogged down and is trudging through the mush and needs a fresh perspective. Boswell eliminates the "techno-jargon," and gets in your face with ways to create fiction that works. Each chapter discusses in essay format many present and past works, referencing such diverse writers as Chekov and Tolstoy, Jean Thompson and Peter Taylor, and many others. In my view, the first essay and title of the book, "The Half-Known World," has a section in it that tells readers about five categories of failure, and this is worth the price of the book alone. Many times, writers get stuck in these categories, and Boswell offers a way out of the sludge pile to better writing, lively characters and imaginative settings. Highly recommended and a great book to have around when you write your next novel or short story.

More a personal vision of writing itself than a manual, Boswell's book connects probing discussions of technique with the larger sense of writing as an engagement with the wonder and challenge of being alive. With disarming self-deprecation and lively anecdotes, Boswell explores writing as a moral act.

Writing fiction requires a combination of expertise, talent, experience, and imagination. In "The Half-Known World: On Writing Fiction", Robert Boswell (the published author of five novels and an instructor in creative writing at the New Mexico State University, the University of Houston, and in the Warren Wilson MFA program) draws upon his more than twenty years of personal experience and earned expertise to compile nine compelling informed and informative essays on the craft issues facing every literary writer and author. Comprising this extraordinary compendium of observation, insights and advice are Process and Paradigm; Narrative Spandrels; On Omniscience; Urban Legends, Pornography, and Literary Fiction; The Alternate Universe; Politics and Art in the Novel; Private eye Point of View; You Must Change Your Life; and the title piece, The Half-Known World. Enhanced with a two and a half page listing of referenced works at the end, "The Half-Known World" will prove to be a fascinating and educative read for anyone who aspires to literary success as a writer of deftly crafted fiction.

This is an engaging informative book on story form and craft. Probably best for more advanced students if you're using it for teaching. It's also beautifully written.

Boswell's been teaching the art of writing literary fiction for almost 3 decades. He's got seven novels under his belt and a boatload of stories. That's a lot of experience.

As a student of his, I had the pleasure of taking both a craft class and a workshop class with him. We got the chance to study this book in a craft class taught by another instructor, Rus Bradburd, at the same university, NMSU. Normally, I tend to frown on this sort of behavior. It has a whiff of nepotism and it'd be similar to a teacher assigning their own book. It just looks bad, like you're trying to humor your colleague rather than genuinely appreciating the book. Thankfully, this was not the case at all.

Boswell (AKA "Boz") has written an excellent craft book, honed by his years of writing and teaching. The first chapter, the titular essay, is destined to become a staple in craft essays, as it clearly and distinctly distills the essence of what separate literary writing from, well, everything else. Unlike Margaret Atwood's craft book "Negotiating with the Dead", Boswell avoids high-toned philosophy or simple pragmatic rules for something much more even-handed. Each chapter, a single essay, is focused also around a narrative that utilizes the chapter's lesson about writing.

He also avoids trumpeting his own successes more than he has to. In his essay on political fiction, he talks about a moment in "American Owned Love" where he feels his made a mistake in balancing a large politically-charged event with a personal, interior tension. Not many writers take shots at their own stuff, especially years (10+) after publication. I applaud this type of hindsight and honesty.

My few complaints about the book are that many essays are definitely less strong than others. The essay on omniscience, although extensive, has a list of 12 narrative "planks" necessary for a good omniscient narrator. The structure of this chapter is far too dense and prescriptive when compared with the other essays. It's actually a hard chapter to read and comprehend on the first few reads. His other chapter on urban legends and pornography is a bit scattered, with an unclear thesis to the essay. He's trying to connect different ideas of truth very loosely together, and it's not as centered as others.

The list of authors cited in the text is not terribly energizing. He runs the gambit of Chekov, Hemingway, Munro, Melville, with a few Chicano writers like Marquez. The writers cited are predominately European or American in nature, and represent a traditional literary canon and a certain aesthetic homogeny. This is Boswell's book and he can like whomever he wants, but I was disappointed in the stylistic variety of writers utilized, especially from someone with such extensive experience.

Overall, this is a great read. Informative, accessible, expansive. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to buff up their wordsmithing.