Sheer Fiction One

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Volume One

​​Paperback, 224 pages, 6 x 9", 1987, 0-914232-98-3


"Sheer pleasure." — Kirkus Reviews

"Sheer joy." — The New York Times

"Compared to his, most literary criticism is a genteel snooze"— Publishers Weekly

"Accessible to ordinary readers" — Small Press Book Review

​

The author of such celebrated novels as Rat Man of Paris, The Very Rich Hours of Count von Stauffenberg, and The Place in Flowers Where Pollen Rests has collected in this volume a quarter-century of essays, short and long, on modern and contemporary fiction from around the world. More than a mere collection, however, Sheer Fiction [Vol. 1] proposes an understand of how language and "reality" interlock, and how the novel incorporates dimensions of imaginative, scientific, and philosophical consciousness. From Virginia Woolf's Orlando to the "magic realists" Andrade, Marquez, and Vargas Llosa; from the early French symbolism of Lautreamont to Blaise Centrars and Andre Schwarz-Bart; from Heinrich Boll and Christa Wolf to Samuel Beckett, Italo Calvino, G. V. Desani and Witold Gombrowicz; from the principal European languages, in short, Paul West uncovers surprising developments in the 20th-century novel.


For Volume Two, go here

For Volume Three, go here

For Volume Four, go here

  • Reviews
  • Table of Contents
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"Some of the essays focus on the provincialism and anti-intellectualism of American prose, which has preoccupied West since the late '60s. All three volumes [of Sheer Fiction] also include impassioned, playful, and rigorous accounts of writers West admires, including Spain's Juan Goytisolo, America's William Gass, and Germany's Thomas Bernhard. Volume I, the most substantial of the three, contains 'In Defense of Purple Prose,' a polemic that should be memorized by creative-writing students and critics alike." — Bill Marx, Boston Phoenix

"[Paul West's] genuine excitement for this fiction is contagious and his own language is as splendid as the purple stylists he celebrates. ... This lively collection fills the reader with a renewed sense of awe before both the genre and the cosmos it emulates with such panache." 
— Review of Contemporary Fiction

"Unlike most books that deal with contemporary fiction, this one is as interesting for its dazzling prose style as for the useful and often witty insights it offers. ... Every single piece in the book reflects West's great learning, originality, and clarity of mind." — Small Press

"Critics of all stripes would do well to read this work for the example that West presents in his charged prose. ...[F]or readers seeking an alternative view of contemporary fiction or those wishing to see more of West, this volume is a delight. Whatever else he may be, West is never a dull writer and one who says incomparably well what others stumble to articulate" — Studies in the Novel

"Paul West is a lively and imaginative writer, and his erudition permeates every page." — MaGill Book Reviews

"A brilliant collection of critical writing." — Wilson Library Bulletin
PART ONE: ESSAYS
"A Rocking Horse on Mars"
"The Shapelessness of Things to Come"
"The Fable's Manger"
"In Defense of Purple Prose"
"The Jazz of Consciousness"
"The Tiger in the Music Room, the Mollusk in the Zoo"

PART TWO: REVIEWS
Juan Goytisolo, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Alejo Carpentier, Mario de Andrade, Osman Lins, Julio Cortazar, Gabriel Garcia Marzuez, Jose Donoso, Augusto Roa Bastos, Ariel Dorfman, Hermann Broch, Hermann Hesse, Gunter Grass, Heinrich Boll, Uwe Johnson, Arno Schmidt, Christa Wolf, Peter Handke, Jakov Lind, Lautreamont, Blaise Cendrars, Louis Ferdinand Celine, Samuel Beckett, Michel Tournier, Andre Schwarz-Bart, Italo Calvino, Primo Levi, Witold Gombrowicz, Ludvik Vaculik, George Konrad, Vladimir Nabokov, William H. Gass, Walter Abish, Guy Davenport, Evan S. Connell, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Michael Ayrton, G.V. Desani