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Journal ArticleDOI

Narrativity and Sound in German Radio Play Adaptations of Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy

01 Jan 2017-Partial Answers (The Johns Hopkins University Press)-Vol. 15, Iss: 1, pp 151-165
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored the different modes of narrative sound in three German radio play adaptations of Auster's New York Trilogy, Stadt aus Glas, Katharina Bihler's Schlagschatten, and Norbert Schaeffer's Hinter verschlossenen Turen.
Abstract: In line with the strong emphasis on visuality in the wake of the “visual turn” in literary and cultural studies, graphic novel adaptations of literary texts have recently been the objects of scholarly study and narratological theory building. Much less attention, if any, has been accorded to radio play adaptations of novels like Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy . An analysis of radio play adaptations acquires a special significance in the case of this highly enigmatic work, which makes a seriously playful use of postmodern narrative strategies. It is perhaps above all this feature which made the adaptation of the novel’s first instalment, City of Glass , into a graphic novel by Paul Karasik and David Mazucchelli so successful. While the graphic novel visualizes characteristic features of its mother text, this paper explores the different modes of narrative sound in three German radio play adaptations of Auster’s novel. Alfred Behrens’ Stadt aus Glas , Katharina Bihler’s Schlagschatten , and Norbert Schaeffer’s Hinter verschlossenen Turen employ narrative devices like voices in both German and English, the evocation of city soundscapes, the narrative uses of music as well as issues of the simultaneity and/or difference of story and discourse time. The narrative auralization of Auster’s novels in the radio plays under discussion can be shown to foreground non-visual aspects of the pre-texts and to add further dimensions for interpretation that underline the usefulness of audionarratological analysis for adaptation studies.
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BookDOI
31 Jan 2008
TL;DR: A fundamental definition of the constitutive characteristics of narrative texts is defined which provides a terminological and theoretical system of reference for future research in narrative theory.
Abstract: This book is a standard work for modern narrative theory. It is a translation and expansion of the Russian work "Narratologija" (Moscow 2003) and presents a comprehensive foundation for narratology. The author explains and discusses in detail problems of communication structure and instances, narrative perspective, the relationship between narrator's text and person's text, and the narrativity of literary texts and the texts as events. The focus is formed by the constitutive structures of fictional narrative texts. The book postulates a theory of narration and analyses central narratological categories such as fiction, mimesis, author, reader, narrator, narrative perspective, text, story, narrative time etc. against the background of the history of narrative research. The result is a fundamental definition of the constitutive characteristics of narrative texts which provides a terminological and theoretical system of reference for future research in narrative theory. A detailed bibliography and glossary of narratological terms make this book a compendium of narrative theory which is of relevance for scholars and students of all literary disciplines. In addition, the book develops a new methodological basis for future researchers.

75 citations

Book
01 Jan 1985
TL;DR: One of the 100 most important comics of the century, City of Glass as discussed by the authors was published in the UK for the first time by Faber and Faber in 2000, and it was chosen as one of the '100 Most Important Comics of the Century'.
Abstract: 'It was a wrong number that started it ...' Chosen as one of the '100 Most Important Comics of the Century', Faber is proud to publish the graphic novel City of Glass for the first time in the UK. As Art Spiegelman explains in his new introduction, David Mazzucchelli and Paul Karasik 'created a strange doppelganger of the original book' and 'a breakthrough work.' Paul Auster's Edgar Award-nominated masterwork has been astonishingly transformed into a new visual language.

59 citations

BookDOI
TL;DR: Paul Auster and the Postmodern American Novel as discussed by the authors, or The Heir Intestate Paul Auster's Pseudonymous World In the Realm of the Naked Eye: The Poetry of PaulAuster "The Hunger Must be Preserved at All Cost": A Reading of The Invention of Solitude The Detective and the Author: City of Glass Auster Sublime Closure: The Locked Room "Looking for Signs in the Air": Urban Space and the postmodern in In the Country of Last Things Inside Moon Palace The Music of Chance: Aleatorical (Dis)harm
Abstract: Introduction: Paul Auster and the Postmodern American Novel Paul Auster, or The Heir Intestate Paul Auster's Pseudonymous World In the Realm of the Naked Eye: The Poetry of Paul Auster "The Hunger Must Be Preserved at All Cost": A Reading of The Invention of Solitude The Detective and the Author: City of Glass Auster's Sublime Closure: The Locked Room "Looking for Signs in the Air": Urban Space and the Postmodern in In the Country of Last Things Inside Moon Palace The Music of Chance: Aleatorical (Dis)harmonies Within "The City of the World" Leviathan: Post Hoc Harmonies A Look Back from the Horizon Being Paul Auster's Ghost Paul Auster: A Selected Bibliography Contributors Index

36 citations

Book ChapterDOI
31 Dec 1995

15 citations