Year: 2007
Type: article
Abstract: PELLEGRIN: Many critics describe you as a novelist who writes "content-intensive" books, but your novels might just as well be described as form-intensive.Your narratives obey strong structural constraints.The Gold Bug Variations is patterned on the overall configuration of Bach's Goldbergs.Many of your novels contain embedded story frames.Structural symmetry is central to the composition of Three Farmers on their Way to a Dance… So, to what extent do you consider these tight structures as a means of triggering ideas and inspiration?Do you see structure as a "story-making machine," as Georges Perec had it?4 R. POWERS.I think that most people's gut reaction is that structure somehow limits what you are able to do with narrative; it forecloses on possibilities.I think just the opposite: for certain kinds of compositional temperament, constraint is liberating.Finding the right form for certain content frees up infinite possibility that is absent when you can head in any direction.The artists that I most admire have discovered that inverse relationship between constraint and freedom: the more you constrain the outline of possibility, the richer the possibilities for filling in that outline.The trick lies "Only the Conversation Matters" European journal of American studies, 2-1 | 2007
DOI: 10.4000/ejas.1145
Author: Jean-Yves Pellegrin
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W1968635706