Showing papers in "Critique-studies in Contemporary Fiction in 2005"
TL;DR: The crisis of postmodern masculinity in Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho and Dennis Cooper's Frisk is discussed in this paper, with a focus on the role of women.
Abstract: (2005). 'And as things fell apart': The Crisis of Postmodern Masculinity in Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho and Dennis Cooper's Frisk. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 57-72.
24 citations
TL;DR: Passing as Tragedy: Philip Roth's The Human Stain, the Oedipus Myth, and the Self-Made Man as mentioned in this paper, is a classic example of passing as tragedy.
Abstract: (2005). Passing as Tragedy: Philip Roth's The Human Stain, the Oedipus Myth, and the Self-Made Man. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 101-112.
22 citations
TL;DR: McEwan as mentioned in this paper discusses memory and storytelling in Ian McEwan's Atonement, focusing on the role of memory and storytelling in memory and narrative in the novel.
Abstract: (2005). Memory and Storytelling in Ian McEwan's Atonement. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 46, No. 2, pp. 82-91.
21 citations
16 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, Trauma and Memory in Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-Five are discussed. But the focus is on the authors' inability to remember this: "You must remember this":
Abstract: (2005). 'You must remember this': Trauma and Memory in Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-Five. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 46, No. 4, pp. 357-368.
14 citations
TL;DR: The authors discuss gender, race, and the nation in A Gesture Life, focusing on women and race in contemporary fiction, and discuss the relationship between race and gender in contemporary literature.
Abstract: (2005). Gender, Race, and the Nation in A Gesture Life. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 46, No. 2, pp. 146-159.
11 citations
TL;DR: Pamuk et al. as discussed by the authors described the meeting of East and West as a "meeting of east and west" from the perspective of Orhan Pamuk's Istanbulite perspective.
Abstract: (2005). Meetings of East and West: Orhan Pamuk's Istanbulite Perspective. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 191-204.
10 citations
TL;DR: In Neuromancer, meaning is cut loose from our surroundings, so that the self and the world we knew are in question as discussed by the authors, and the self can be called into question, decentered, split apart, and rendered unknown.
Abstract: uch has been written about how cyberspace in William Gibson’s Neuromancer allows new forms of identity. Within that cyberspace, the self can be called into question, decentered, split apart, and rendered unknowable. Brian McHale, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., Veronica Hollinger, Scott Bukatman, and John Christie, to name a few critics, have all argued that in some fashion Gibson’s cyberspace represents identity as postmodern.1 In Neuromancer, the new forms of identity point not so much to where we are headed in the future as to where we are in our present condition. The novel is social commentary for contemporary Western society, extrapolating the trajectory of our social practices in the latter years of the twentieth century. The novel illustrates how technology and global capitalism influence our ontology by generating a world of images that have no original referent: meaning is cut loose from our surroundings, so that the self and the world we knew are in question.2 This questioning of ontology in Neuromancer, the representative text for the cyberpunk genre, has caused concern because of its political ramifications. Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr. finds cyberpunk to be the apotheosis of postmodernism as selfconscious bad faith: he argues that cyberpunk concerns itself not with hopes and solutions but with the difficulties of representation in a hyperreal setting (“Cyberpunk” 193). Along with Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., many have criticized cyberpunk or Neuromancer for a lack of positive alternatives to an impending, dystopic future.3 What has generally been overlooked in Neuromancer is an enclave of political resistance found in the Zion cluster, the home of the Rastas Aerol and Maelcum. Tom Moylan has pointed out its role as a seemingly utopian alternative that might shift the novel’s focus from a dystopian pessimism to a utopian M
10 citations
TL;DR: Memory, Home, and Exile in Contemporary Anglophone Lebanese Fiction as mentioned in this paper, a collection of essays about home, home, and exile in contemporary English-Lebanon fiction.
Abstract: (2005). Memory, Home, and Exile in Contemporary Anglophone Lebanese Fiction. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 219-233.
8 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe a way to express loss in Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy, which they call "embedding losses" in the book. But they do not discuss how to interpret these losses.
Abstract: (2005). Embodying Losses in Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 46, No. 4, pp. 307-319.
8 citations
TL;DR: The Disruption of Genealogy in Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove is discussed in this article, where the author describes a "Kin to Nobody": the disentanglement of genealogy in the book.
Abstract: (2005). 'Kin to Nobody': The Disruption of Genealogy in Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 73-89.
TL;DR: In this paper, a novel called Indigo is set in the context of the "proliferation of historical novels with more or less overt metafictional traits" that began in Britain in the late 1970s (Onega 8), and it can be said to belong to what Linda Hutcheon, in A Poetics of Postmodernism, calls "historiographic metafiction", which seems to characterize a worldwide trend in contemporary fiction.
Abstract: arina Warner’s novel, Indigo, can be said to belong to what Linda Hutcheon, in A Poetics of Postmodernism, calls “historiographic metafiction,” which seems to characterize a worldwide trend in contemporary fiction. Indeed, Indigo is set in the context of the “proliferation of historical novels with more or less overt metafictional traits” that began in Britain in the late 1970s (Onega 8). As Marina Warner said in 2001, “This impulse towards returning to the past, to a topos in the past and rewriting it has become highly characteristic of contemporary fiction, especially when its concerns are polemical: returning to the past, re-visioning it” (“Mapping” 5). For Hutcheon, “historiographic metafiction” is the main form taken by the postmodern novel; her definition is close to what Robert Holton calls “resistance postmodernism,” a type of fiction, which, contrary to a purely ludic postmodernist mode of writing, engages with the world in a way that challenges both modernism’s formalism and its simple mimetic/realist notions of referentiality. Far from denying the real, postmodernism reintroduces truth and reference but makes problematic the entire notion of representing reality. Far from being ahistorical, postmodernism is rooted in the historical world, although it questions how we can know the past and rethinks history as a human construct. “Historiographic metafiction self-consciously reminds us that while events did occur in the real empirical past, we name and constitute those events as historical facts by selection and narrative positioning” (Hutcheon, Poetics 97); it also reminds us that we only know the past through its texts, documentary evidence, discursive inscription, and traces in the present. History is critically reevaluated in the light of the present, by fictionally revisiting its textualized remains.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The Evolutionary Mythology in the Writings of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. as mentioned in this paper is a collection of essays about the evolution of the human mind and its relationship with fiction.
Abstract: (2005). Evolutionary Mythology in the Writings of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 46, No. 4, pp. 383-396.
TL;DR: Menendez as discussed by the authors described the loss of center and story in the collection In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, a collection of short stories written by women in the Spanish-Cuban language.
Abstract: (2005). Cuba Interrupted: The Loss of Center and Story in Ana Menendez's Collection In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 235-251.
TL;DR: In this article, Alger's Shadows in Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres is compared to A Hundred Acres' A Thousand and One Acres, and Alger's Shadow in A Thousand-Acres is described as follows:
Abstract: (2005). Alger's Shadows in Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 23-39.
TL;DR: The Formats of Audio and Amorousness in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity: Single, Long-Playing, and Compilation as mentioned in this paper is a collection of audio and visual representations of the novel.
Abstract: (2005). Single, Long-Playing, and Compilation: The Formats of Audio and Amorousness in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 3-21.
TL;DR: In this paper, Historia and Guilt: Graham Swift's Waterland is described as a "historia and guilt" story, with a focus on the author's own feelings of guilt.
Abstract: (2005). Historia and Guilt: Graham Swift's Waterland. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 90-100.
TL;DR: The second Faust figure of John Banville's Mefisto, Professor Kosok, vents his spleen: “You want certainty, order, all that? Then invent it!”.
Abstract: ounded by government officials demanding results, Professor Kosok, the second Faust figure of John Banville’s Mefisto, vents his spleen: “You want certainty, order, all that? Then invent it!” (193).1 And that, one school of thought would contend, is exactly what the human race has done. Order, argues the hermit in Paul Valery’s Faust-play, The Solitary, is a result of human desire, “a bargain between the one who sees and wants, and that which he sees” (qtd. in Berensmeyer 198). Queried by Rüdiger Imhof as to what he meant by “chance,” Banville offered this reply:
TL;DR: It is in the hinterland of Sichuan, among mist-shrouded mountains, giant bamboo forests, inaccessible ridges and ravines, that Gao begins his search for Soul Mountain, prompted by a chance seatmate on a train, who casually suggests that he take the train to Wuyizhen, then go upstream by boat on the You River.
Abstract: It is in the hinterland of Sichuan, among mist-shrouded mountains, giant bamboo forests, inaccessible ridges and ravines, that Gao begins his search for Soul Mountain, prompted by a chance seatmate on a train, who casually suggests that he “take the train to Wuyizhen, then go upstream by boat on the You River.” Too bad these names are not translated, for wuyi means “it’s not that” or “not there,” and, as zhen means “town” and you means “particular”: He is to follow the Particular River to the Town That Isn’t There. The ironic humour and paradox, lost in the translation, is meant to alert the reader that Soul Mountain is not a realistic, logical narrative, that odd things are sure to happen. (D 14)
TL;DR: The first of Neely's series of four novels featuring Blanche White, an African American domestic worker turned amateur P.I as mentioned in this paper, provides a crucial insight about its protagonist when Blanche recalls how, as a child, she was taunted by other children, including other black children, for being dark skinned.
Abstract: lanche on the Lam—the first of BarbaraNeely’s series of four novels featuring Blanche White, an African American domestic worker turned amateur P.I.—presents a crucial insight about its protagonist when Blanche recalls how, as a child, she was taunted by other children, including other black children, for being dark skinned. Combined with the double irony of her name, the child Blanche nearly withered under insults about her color until a wise aunt told her that the taunts stemmed from the other children’s jealousy: “Some people got night in ’em, some got morning, others, like me and your mama, got dusk. But it’s only them that’s got night can become invisible. People what got night in ’em can step into the dark and poof—disappear! Go any old where they want. Do anything” (59). The adult Blanche recognizes that as a black woman domestic, she is already “invisible” several times over by virtue of her ethnicity, sex, and class. Recalling her aunt’s wisdom, Blanche also recognizes the potential power of that invisibility: She uses it to conduct and to cover up her investigations, while simultaneously viewing those investigations as a way of redressing the imbalance of power between herself and her employers. The subversive power of Blanche’s invisibility and its implicit allusion to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is only the first of many traditional African American literary tropes that Neely signifies on in her novel. Neely extends Ellison’s metaphor to the process of detection itself: Other fictional detectives might use wigs and various costumes to go undercover, but Blanche’s “disguise” is constructed from the racial, gender, and class stereotypes that circumscribe her—stereotypes that Blanche manages to exploit and subvert to do her detective work. She uses her position in her employers’ households—
TL;DR: In this article, Caryl Phillips argues that writers have to continually define and redefine their position in relationship to Britain, and their work is therefore necessarily characterized by constant questioning and reinvention of the most vigorous type.
Abstract: Eventually every writer discovers that his or her main struggle is with this one word: form. Plots are relatively easy to acquire, and characters will, if one is both patient and lucky eventually show themselves. But form, how to tell one’s story, is the ultimate challenge. By virtue of the accident of their birth, “outsider” writers have to continually define and redefine their position in relationship to Britain. They cannot accept the “comfort zone” of continuity, for this is to exclude themselves from a full participation in British life. Their work is therefore necessarily characterized by constant questioning and reinvention of the most vigorous type. —Caryl Phillips, “Extravagant Strangers” 293 (emphasis in original)
TL;DR: Carver as discussed by the authors used the epigraph from Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being to introduce the collection Where I’m Calling From: New and Selected Stories that appeared in 1988, the year of his death.
Abstract: o reader of Carver’s stories can fail to be struck by the aptness of the epigraph with which he chose to introduce the collection Where I’m Calling From: New and Selected Stories that appeared in 1988, the year of his death. The extract from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being seems, retrospectively, to capture the condition of all his characters, especially the characters who populate the earlier stories:
TL;DR: The Poetics of the Subject as mentioned in this paper ) is the definite article that precedes the word "subject" in the phrase "the poetry of the subject" and it was used by Elkin to describe representation and performance in postmodern fiction.
Abstract: s a preface to my discussion here of the definite article that precedes the word “subject” in the phrase “The Poetics of the Subject,”1 I want to analyze an event that occurred twenty years ago at a conference that I organized on the topic, “Representation and Performance in Postmodern Fiction.” The conference brought together a number of writers (Michel Butor, William Gass, Stanley Elkin, Malcolm Bradbury, and Clarence Major) and critics specialized in contemporary American fiction. The last paper of the Saturday morning session, scheduled to end at noon, was Stanley Elkin’s. The previous speakers had been so voluble, or the moderators so tolerant, that it was well past noon when Stanley came up to read his piece—a big smile on his face, dressed in baggy blue overalls, and propping his clumsy and obese body with a walking-stick (he had multiple sclerosis, “suffering by the miles, but dying by inches,” as he put it). We were all starving, and our attention and intellect, already overtaxed by the previous papers, were wavering. Yet, when he started to read with his deep voice and elegant inflexions, lending an entrancing rhythm to his long-winded and metaphorical sentences, we soon forgot our deplorable condition as if he had suddenly injected us with fresh energy.
TL;DR: The Island of the Assassins: Cannabis, Spectacle, and Terror in Alex Garland's The Beach as discussed by the authors, a novel about the Assassins of The Beach, is a classic example.
Abstract: (2005). Island of the Assassins: Cannabis, Spectacle, and Terror in Alex Garland's The Beach. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 46, No. 4, pp. 369-381.
TL;DR: In this paper, German Mothers, New World Daughters: Angelika Fremd's Heartland and Sigrid Nunez's A Feather on the Breath of God are reviewed.
Abstract: (2005). German Mothers, New World Daughters: Angelika Fremd's Heartland and Sigrid Nunez's A Feather on the Breath of God. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 253-266.