Living by Fiction (Paperback)

by Annie Dillard (Author) "Many contemporaries write a fiction intended to achieve traditional kinds of excellence..." (more)
Key Phrases: interpretative fields, narrative collage, contemporary modernism, Pale Fire, Kubla Khan, Henry Green (more...)

Editorial Reviews

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

Product 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.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; Revised edition (July 20, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060915447
• ISBN-13: 978-0060915445
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #153,783 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Art Is Interpretation, October 21, 2005

By	Jon Linden (Warren, N.J. United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"Living By Fiction" is in essence a treatise by Annie Dillard that attempts to interpret art, and thereby includes fiction as art, and as an interpretation. The book is well constructed and the sentences are beautifully crafted. The treatise starts by discussing in vast detail, the styles and forms of writing. Then it concentrates on "modernistic" fiction. This type of fiction takes numerous and varied forms.

Annie distinguishes between styles of writing. She does this very much by example. She uses the work of many, many authors as her examples and illustrations of the different manners in which a writer can craft a work. Specifically, she describes works of fiction. After detailing these different styles and their characteristics, she then turns to the purpose of fiction as a subcategory of art.

She posits that art is an interpretation. It is the artist's perspective on the relationship between something in the universe and a representation of that vision of the item. Her analysis inevitably leads her to state that art and religion are the modes by which people explain and interpret the unexplainable. Art produces an interpretation of a vision that is meant for others to see.

The interpretation, interestingly enough, is in fact non-existent without the reader and the critic to observe. While opining that fiction needs readers and critics to be interpreted, the interpretation is the very purpose of the creation. Without the reader and the critic, the work does not really exist. It exists in form, but not in value. The work is a creation that only carries a message if someone reads it; and more so if someone such as a critic helps us to interpret it.

In a fascinating "diatribe" to use her designation, she discusses the complexity of interpretation. In addition, she discusses a concept that art is the ordering of disordered and decaying existence. Basing her discussion of this concept on Newton's Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that all things become randomly distributed, unless acted upon by some external force; Annie argues that fiction and art in general are an ordering of this theory of disorder or entropy. She in fact suggests that perhaps art, including fiction, is the purpose of man. And that this purpose is for man to make order of the universe around him. Does art create meaning or does it expose it? In essence Annie says the distinction does not really matter. What matters is that it is a depiction; which is open to anyone who wishes to interpret it. Without an observer, it carries no real meaning. It is just an object. Only through its interpretation does it gain meaning. Thus, art and fiction necessitate interpreters, and it is through these interpreters, the reader, that it gains meaning and substance.

While complex in her contentions, she is also sublime. The treatise truly is a thing of beauty, but that is not sufficient to Annie. Nor is it really sufficient to a reader or a critic. What is sufficient and valuable is that the art object presents the reader with an interpretation. And whether the reader's interpretation is in accordance with the artist's is really of no account. Its value is in its illustration of a message. That message is open to all to interpret as they see it, and as it relates to life and existence. This book is recommended to all readers of complex fiction. It is truly a picturesque look at the art of writing and also the purpose thereof.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars stimulating and thought-provoking, June 2, 1998

By A Customer

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!

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly Magical, April 15, 2008

By	Sandra S. Berns (Ormiston, Queensland, Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazing, magical! Annie Dillard's command of our shared language is truly amazing and her vision distinctive. From her sensitivity to the vagaries of the human condition to her exploration of Christian and Jewish mysticism, this is a wonderful book - one which can be dipped into again and again.