Description
Why do we read? What do we cherish in a book? What is the nature of a masterpiece? What do Alice Munro, Albert Camus, and the great Polish experimentalist Witold Gombrowicz have in common? In the tradition of Nabokov, Calvino, and Kundera, Douglas Glover’s new essay collection fuses his long experience as an author with his love of philosophy and his passion for form. Call it a new kind of criticism or an operator’s manual for readers and writers, The Erotics of Restraint extends Glover’s long and deeply personal conversation with great books and their authors. With the same dazzling mix of emotion and idea that characterizes his fiction, he dissects narrative and shows us how and why it works, why we love it, and how that makes us human. Erudite and obsessively detailed, inventive, confessional, and cheeky, these essays offer a brilliant clarity, a respite in an age of doubt. They raise the bar.
Praise for The Erotics of Restraint: Essays on Literary Form
“His deep analysis of great works of fiction is more like the study of, say, quantum physics…comprehending the underpinnings of our existence in relation to the evolution of storytelling creates perspective that leads to mindfulness, an understanding of what resonates in the human psyche—what words, what phrases, what desires…it empowers [writers] to create works of deeper, more effective meaning, works that engage on both conscious and subconscious levels.”— Orca
“The collection is a fascinating journey through literature, philosophy, form, and the connection we all feel when we encounter incredible writing.”— Fiction Writer’s Review
Praise for Douglas Glover
“Glover is a master of narrative structure.” — Wall Street Journal
“So sharp, so evocative, that the reader sees well beyond the tissue of words into … the author’s poetic grace.” — The New Yorker
“Every literate person in the country should be reading Glover’s essays” — The Globe & Mail
“Glover invents his own assembly of critical approaches and theories that is eclectic, personal, scholarly, and smart … a direction for future literary criticism to take.” — The Denver Quarterly
“Knotty, intelligent, often raucously funny.” — Maclean’s
“Passionately intricate.” — The Chicago Tribune
“Few experiences in life are as great as reading towering writers like Jane Austen and Alice Munro. As a critic, Douglas Glover does something astonishing: he makes that experience even better. By reading Glover you become a better reader, more alive to the nuance, music, and sheer richness of the best writing. He’s a critic who elevates reading itself into an art form.”— Jeet Heer
“Darkly humorous, simultaneously restless and relentless.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Impressive, enjoyable, and highly instructive … This is not literary craft reduced to statistical formulae and write-by-the-numbers word-bytes. Glover’s admirable ability and patient willingness to cast a careful—not cold—eye on what makes sentences hum and flow is fueled by a vital, infectious fascination with words, enabling him to reveal the inspired, alchemical, verbal concatenation at work in the most alluring and memorable fiction writing.” — Review of Contemporary Fiction
“For the budding writer, Attack of the Copula Spiders offers an excellent primer on the basics; the practiced writer will glean so much more from Glover’s wonderful literary experience.” — The Los Angeles Review of Books
“Douglas Glover, the award-winning Canadian writer of fiction, short stories and essays carries within him a huge sense of duty both to the craft of writing and to the language … I stand before it in awe … This is a book for all writers and for any creative writing class syllabus.” — Telegraph-Journal
