Mani nepārsteidz Rendas uzskati par literatūru un dzīvi, bet izbrīna, cik tie ir līdzīgi mana mentora priekšstatiem. Literatūra ir idejas izklāsts caur atbilstošu sižetu. Sižetu virza raksturs, kurš iemieso konkrētas vērtības. Lai izstrādātu ideju, sižetu, raksturu, tos ir jādefinē. Skaidri izteiktas definīcijas palīdz neapzinātajai prāta daļai izveidot radošus risinājumus.

Man nav spēka pret šo iebilst. Renda neņem vērā, ka literatūra un mākslai ir forma, kuras kvalitatīva izveide var būt daudz svarīgāks un izcilāks sasniegums, kā formas pieskaņošana precīzi iepriekš izdomātam saturam. Renda uzskata sevi par izcilu rakstnieci, bet man tagad ir iemesls palasīt viņas daiļliteratūras darbus.

Teaching creative writing again this semester got me in the mood to do more research for my students, so I read this quick one for them before we started our fiction unit. I would not recommend it for anyone who has a weak stomach for Rand's philosophies and her ego, but if you're okay with both then you'll do fine. That's not to say that you won't still get annoyed by her saying that all non-objectivist art isn't really art, comparing her own writing to Hugo and Tolstoy, and dissing Kafka (among many, many other writers). But if you can swallow that then you'll be open to some interesting things she says about the nature of conflict, plot, concretization (versus abstraction, which was perfect for my students who all seem to only write from the abstract universe), flashback, and symbolism.

And the book's origin is pretty interesting: Rand gave a series of salon-style lectures in her home during the late 1950s and this book is a result of the transcription of tapes of those lectures. The editor's foreword is an interesting description of piecing together the lectures and adding transitions to make for a single smoothly reading book. And it works as such, for sure. In fact, it's probably Rand's unbelievably strong personality that is able to make this work. With a weaker person the variations in mood, tenor, and direction would be much more obvious.

The narrator, Marguerite Gavin, read this seven hour book in a perfectly snooty style of Ayn Rand voice (or of what I imagine her voice to be). It's a quick read, though beware of the audiobook format if you intend to take any notes for yourself (I used my Audible app's "bookmark" feature when I was driving and couldn't easily take notes or pause the book [which I know was unsafe, but it's in the past, so get over it]).

I had read pretty well everything Ayn Rand had written during her lifetime but there are some of her posthumously published works I had not got around to. This is one of them. It is an edited transcript of a series of informal discussions she held with friends and fans in her living room in 1958, finally edited and published in 2000. And it is a terrific addition to her works.

The book is an adjunct to her collection, The Romantic Manifesto, and is aimed particularly at those who want to write fiction and those who want to understand the different types of fiction around. In particular she distinguishes between two major schools of literature - romanticism and naturalism. Romanticism focuses on big issues with larger than life characters. Naturalism focuses on the average and mundane - the folks next door.

She discusses the importance of writing for the intelligent reader - writing descriptively so the reader can form his own conclusions. Bad writers will use a lot of adjectives but avoid concretes. They'll describe a sunset as beautiful or use other adjectives that describe their personal emotional reaction to what they see. She says a better way is to describe concretes and let the reader form his own emotional reaction. So a good writer might say, the sun's brightness faded and flared out into a deep red covering the horizon from end to end before slowly sinking into the sea and winking out.

Rand touches on many other issues for writers including characterization, plot, climax, description, how to train your subconscious to come up with plot ideas, and style. In the two chapters on style, she includes generous excerpts from other authors' works with commentary on the good and bad points about each.

She concludes with some short discussions on narrative versus dramatization, exposition, flashbacks, transitions, metaphors, dialogue, slang and obscenities, and journalistic references. She also touches on special forms of fiction such as humour, science fiction, symbolism, fantasy, and tragedy.

All in all, this is really an excellent textbook on good writing practices. It will certainly help any future forays I might make into fiction. Now I have to find a copy of the companion book, The Art of Non-fiction!

A good overview. Aimed more at writers than readers, but I, a fiction reader who writes about fiction, found multiple standards of judgment helpful for evaluating fiction, so that was valuable