The Rhetoric of Fiction

Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Near Fine. 1983. Second Edition; 3rd Printing Thus. Paperback. Near Fine in Wraps: The Book shows the slightest spine lean; a tiny scuff at the bottom corner of the rear panel, near the spine; else flawless; the binding is secure; the text is clean. Free of creases to the panels. Free of creases to the backstrip. Free of any creased or dog-eared pages in the text. Free of any underlining, hi-lighting or marginalia or marks in the text. Free of any ownership names, dates, addresses, notations, inscriptions, stamps, plates, or labels. A handsome, nearly-new copy, structurally sound and tightly bound, showing a couple of minor, unobtrusive imperfections. Bright and clean. Corners sharp. Very close to "As New". NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. (8 x 5.25 x 1.65 inches) . Extensive Notes, Bibliographies. Index. Language: English. Weight: 23 ounces. Paperback. N what was likely Booth's most-recognized book, The Rhetoric of Fiction, he argued that all narrative is a form of rhetoric. The book can be seen as his critique of those he viewed as mainstream critics. Booth argues that beginning roughly with Henry James, critics began to emphasize the difference between "showing" and "telling" in fiction and have placed more and more of a dogmatic premium on "showing." Booth argued that despite the realistic effects that modern authors have achieved, trying to distinguish narratives in this way is simplistic and deeply flawed, because authors invariably both show and tell. Booth observed that they appear to choose between the techniques based upon decisions about how to convey their various "commitments" along various "lines of interest," that is, rhetorical means of persuading the audience. Booth argued not only that it does not matter whether an author—as distinct from the narrator—intrudes directly in a work, since readers will always infer the existence of an author behind any text they encounter, but also that readers always draw conclusions about the beliefs and judgments (and also, conclusions about the skills and "success") of a text's implied author, along the text's various lines of interest. This implied author (a widely used term that Booth coined in this book; whom he also called an author's "second self") is the one who "chooses, consciously or unconsciously, what we read; we infer him as an ideal, literary, created version of the real man; he is the sum of his own choices. In this book Booth also coined the term "unreliable narrator". In this 1983 edition of The Rhetoric of Fiction, which included a lengthy addendum to the original 1961 edition, Booth outlined various identities taken on by both authors and readers: The Flesh-and Blood Author, the Implied Author, the Teller of This Tale, the Career Author, and the "Public Myth"; and, the Flesh-and-Blood Re-Creator of Many Stories, the Postulated Reader, the Credulous Listener, the Career Reader, and the Public Myth about the "Reading Public." ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; xix, 552 pp. pages .