The Description for this book, On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature, will be forthcoming.

On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature

Adventures of Pinocchio

This article analyzes the significance of the unstable body in Robert Coover's Pinocchio in Venice (1991), focusing on a triple model of body space: city, body, and knowledge. Notably, these body spaces are rooted in Julia Kristeva's notion of abjection, as they simultaneously horrify and compel. Further, the reinscription of Pinocchio into a “talking book” offers a new look at postmodern notions of the body and its control.

“Nothing Could Be That Grotesque and Live”: Mapping Abject Body Space in Robert Coover's Pinocchio in Venice

Abstract:I examine the often-denigrated concept of the novel of ideas from its inception and critical decline to its relatively recent revival. Using a variant of the exploitation-exploration dilemma in psychology, I suggest that early usage referred to works that exploit philosophical principles—or better, enact them—by setting philosophical positions in conflict. By contrast, use of the concept for more recent works sees characters and plots exploring philosophical stances. The shift corresponds with the greater attention paid to complexity and ambiguity that are hallmarks of continental philosophy and neopragmatism, and with it greater need to explore philosophical stances through fiction.

Enactment or Exploration: Two Roles for Philosophy in the Novel of Ideas

Shifting Perspectives and the Stylish Style: Mannerism in Shakespeare and His Jacobean Contemporaries

(2004) Postmodern Mannerism: An Examination of Robert Coover's Pinocchio in Venice Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol 45, No 3, pp 273-292

Barbara Bond

Papers

Postmodern Mannerism: An Examination of Robert Coover's Pinocchio in Venice