Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #62548 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-24
• Released on: 2007-07-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 120 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Though there are passages where this slim, college-lecture-style volume turns facile or tiresome, novelist Baxter's analysis of "the implied, the half-visible, and the unspoken" in literature is saved from irrelevance by a keen sense of pacing and a healthy dose of self-awareness (after confidently zooming through seminal works by Herman Melville, John Cheever, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Baxter confesses, "I feel that ... I am on the verge of what Walt Whitman calls 'a usual mistake.' I don't wish to simplify what is actually intricate"). Indeed, as the brief chapters of this little book build on each other, Baxter's observations-which initially seem more like interesting rhetorical devices than substantive arguments-gain clarity and momentum, and the accumulation of anecdotal asides about writers' workshops and former students turn them from annoying interjections into helpful indicators of Baxter's relationship with literature. Many of the issues raised in this volume are as old as the study of literature itself, but Baxter's ability to ask unusual and incisive questions of familiar topics (Why is the volatility of Dostoyevsky's characters so unpleasant? Why is it so difficult-and yet so vital-to describe facial features?) makes this little volume worthwhile for the engaged student of literature.
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Review
“The Art Of series is meant to restore criticism as an art, with writers examining features of their craft in lively and colorful prose.” —CHARLES BAXTER

About the Author
CHARLES BAXTER is the author of ten books, including The Feast of Love, a finalist for the National Book Award, and Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction. He teaches at the University of Minnesota and lives in Minneapolis.

Customer Reviews

Substantive Writing
I selected this book on a recommendation from a magazine and it has become a well worn reference in my library of how-to books. I recommend reading it through fast as you can, to get a feel for the concept. Then read it again for the depth. Subtexting sounds very techincal and cold, but the concept is anything but.

I was inspiried by the book and base my plot planning and character development on this concept for every project. Subtext is a writer's secret weapon. I recommend every writer take heed.

Harmonics, A Dark and Stormy Knight, Orphan Records

Subtext
Subtext is that elusive detail that can make or break your story....It is that little extra....Charles Baxter has the subject covered in an easy to read fashion..Will help you put that "extra" in your work to catch a publisher's or production company's eye....

A Cut Above the Rest
In The Art of Subtext, Minneapolis novelist Charles Baxter has gone well beyond other books on the writing of prose fiction. Baxter believes that fictional techniques work when they are rooted in basic cultural assumptions; therefore, his technical advice comes from a provocative meditation on who we are today. He asks why, for instance, writers no longer introduce characters with lengthy verbal portraits of their faces. To summarize Baxter crudely, it is because in a world of makeovers and simulations, we no longer trust appreances. The techniques by which an author creates subtext are important precisely because in our culture truth itself has gone underground. The Art of Subtext is published by Graywolf Press.