Critical Miniatures

The Afterlife of Character

Richard Hughes Gibson

The greatest characters possess an irrepressible vitality.

Taking the Long View

Richard Hughes Gibson

The historical novel strives to recreate not only the material dimensions of a past age but also its mindset.

Unfinished Business

Richard Hughes Gibson

An unfinished fiction is a memento mori.

Why Characters Write

Richard Hughes Gibson

Consider another problem of motivation in the house of fiction: why characters write.

Border Crossings

Richard Hughes Gibson

When translation becomes a part of the art of fiction.

In Through the Out Door

Richard Hughes Gibson

An abandoned—or abandoning—god might also reappear.

Conversation Pieces

Richard Hughes Gibson

Austen’s sparing use of attributions is also a sign of her confidence in her art. She dispensed with unnecessary scaffolding.

The Art of Compression

Richard Hughes Gibson

The very short story can conjure a fiction out of almost nothing.

Wonder-Working Powers

Richard Hughes Gibson

Philosophers are not the only cultivators of wonder.

On Fiction’s Lawlessness

Richard Hughes Gibson

If there is a war between database and narrative in Cervantes and Sterne, it is a merry one.

Cosmogonies

Richard Hughes Gibson

Fiction writers are world builders.