The Half-Known World: On Writing Fiction | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Boswell
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 203856
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.5
ISBN: 1555975046
Dewey Decimal Number: 808
EAN: 9781555975043
ASIN: 1555975046
Publication Date: July 22, 2008
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Product Description
A rigorous examination of the workings of fiction by the novelist Robert Boswell, “one of America’s finest writers” (Tom Perrotta)
Robert Boswell has been writing, reading, and teaching literature for more than twenty years. In this sparkling collection of essays, he brings this vast experience and a keen critical eye to bear on craft issues facing literary writers. Examples from masters such as Leo Tolstoy, Flannery O’Connor, and Alice Munro illustrate this engaging discussion of what makes great writing.
At the same time, Boswell moves readers beyond the classroom, candidly sharing the experiences that have shaped his own writing life. A chance encounter in a hotel bar leads to a fascinating glimpse into his imaginative process. And through the story of a boyhood adventure, Boswell details how important it is for writers to give themselves over to what he calls the “half-known world” of fiction, where surprise and meaning converge.
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| Customer Reviews:
A Highly Intelligent, Highly Useful Collection of Essays About Writing Fiction September 9, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
Write what you half-know September 1, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
Will prove to be a fascinating and educative read for anyone who aspires to literary success August 14, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
You Must Change Your Life August 6, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
A Modern Day Reference Book for All Writers July 24, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
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