title: Fiction and the Figures of Life
author:  William H. Gass 
description: "Gass's criticism, in the best tradition of eloquence, wit, and passion, is a defense of 'poesy' in a time of need... Nearly all the essays are a pleasure to read and some it almost seems shocking to say it are works of beauty. It has happened before one thinks of Keat's letters and some fragments of Lawrence that the unlikely combination of criticism, philosophy and metaphorical inventiveness has resulted in a kind of poetry." --New York Times Book Review<br /><br />"For anyone who writes fiction or writes about it, or reads fiction for the solacing sense of potential reality it can provided, Gass's book is the most important and bracing theoretical study I know of. Beside being a miraculous gifted writer he is that rare thing among creators, a trained philosopher. No one I can name has his persuasive power." --Geoffrey Wolff, Newsweek
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/Gass_9780307962263_epub_cvi_r1.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Also by William H. Gass  
    
  
  
  FICTION  
   _Cartesian Sonata_  
   _The Tunnel_  
   _Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife_  
   _In the Heart of the Heart of the Country_  
   _Omensetter’s Luck_
  
  
  NONFICTION  
   _Life Sentences_  
   _A Temple of Texts_  
   _Tests of Time_  
   _Reading Rilke_  
   _Finding a Form_  
   _On Being Blue_  
   _Habitations of the Word_  
   _The World Within the Word_  
   _Fiction and the Figures of Life_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/Gass_9780307962263_epub_tp_r1.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK  
  PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
  
  
  Copyright © 2013 by William H. Gass  
  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a
  division of Random House, Inc., New York
  
  
  [www.aaknopf.com](http://www.aaknopf.com)
  
  
  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random
  House, Inc.
  
  
  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
  
  
  Gass, William H., [date]  
  Middle C : a nove