#xE2;#xAC;SMyths do not flow through the pipes of history,#xE2;#xAC; writes Viktor Shklovsky, #xE2;#xAC;Sthey change and splinter, they contrast and refute one another. The similar turns out to be dissimilar.#xE2;#xAC; Published in Moscow in 1970 and appearing in English translation for the first time, Bowstring is a seminal work, in which Shklovsky redefines estrangement ( ostranenie) as a device of the literary comparatist#xE2;#xAC;#x1D;the #xE2;#xAC;Sperson out of place,#xE2;#xAC; who has turned up in a period where he does not belong and who must search for meaning with a strained sensibility. As Shklovsky experiments with different genres, employing a technique of textual montage, he mixes autobiography, biography, memoir, history, and literary criticism in a book that boldly refutes mechanical repetition, mediocrity, and cultural parochialism in the name of art that dares to be different and innovative. Bowstring is a brilliant and provocative book that spares no one in its unapologetic project to free art from conventionality.