Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative

I am all for the experimental, for tearing up the standard forms when necessary to deliver something that is unique. The uniqueness should not be the point, though. Jane Alison's exploration of the variety and possibilities in form, seems to push against the notion of linear narrative. Any story, in whatever fragmented form, progresses linearly. It is how we experience things, whether it's the line across the page or time itself. What succeeds in the telling of story, what's required of fiction, is some sort of transition. We start in one place and end up in another. This can be done in any number of ways, as the author shows in many examples, but let's not believe that we're locked into some hierarchical form, some trace of the millennia of patriarchy, that we should now throw aside. We will always have Freytag's triangle, because it is how we experience things, because this way of storytelling is fundamental to our human needs. So, rip it up, cut it up, mix it up, but don't think that we can escape human nature.