Living by Fiction

"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." — Los Angeles Times

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard's classic work of literary criticism

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 how contemporary fiction works and why traditional fiction will always move us. 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 she tackles the urgent questions of meaning in experience itself.

Why has modern fiction shattered the narrative line, and what can it tell us about the world we live in?

• A Writer on Writing: Go behind the curtain with a Pulitzer Prize winner as she explores the essential questions of fiction, from narrative structure to the power of a good sentence.
• Modernism and its Heirs: A deep dive into the work of twentieth-century masters like Nabokov, Borges, and Pynchon to understand how contemporary fiction shapes our sense of reality.
• The Art of Prose: Unpack the mechanics of style in a fascinating analysis that contrasts the virtues of "fine writing" with the stark power of a plain, unadorned sentence.
• Art and Meaning: Tackle the biggest question of all: Does the world have meaning, and what is the role of art in our search to find it?