The author of this study takes issue with the neo-Aristotelian assumptions underlying most work on the novel. He argues that the more distinctive forms of narrative have frequently been misread. In the first instance, they may be best understood at the level of narrative discourse itself, rather than as representations of a world. Gibson draws on Nietzsche, Bakhtin, Genette and a range of modern theories of narrative to provide a basis for reading the more unusual forms of fiction in terms of their own specific logic.