The Return of Omniscience in Contemporary Fiction
TL;DR: In the last two decades, and particularly since the turn of the millennium, a number of important and popular novelists have produced books which exhibit all the formal elements we typically associate with literary omniscience: an all-know ing, heterodiegetic narrator who addresses the reader directly, offers intrusive com mentary on the events being narrated, provides access to the consciousness of a range of characters, and generally asserts a palpable presence within the fictional world.
Abstract: I want to begin this essay by pointing out what I think has become a salient fea ture, or at least significant trend, in contemporary British and American literary fic tion: namely, a prominent reappearance of the ostensibly outmoded omniscient narrator. In the last two decades, and particularly since the turn of the millennium, a number of important and popular novelists have produced books which exhibit all the formal elements we typically associate with literary omniscience: an all-know ing, heterodiegetic narrator who addresses the reader directly, offers intrusive com mentary on the events being narrated, provides access to the consciousness of a range of characters, and generally asserts a palpable presence within the fictional world. The novelists I'm thinking of include Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Zadie Smith, David Lodge, Adam Thirlwell, Michel Faber, and Nicola Barker in the UK; and Jonathan Franzen, Don DeLillo, David Foster Wallace, Tom Wolfe, Rick Moody, and John Updike in the US. In this paper I want to consider why so many contempo rary writers have turned to omniscient narration, given the aesthetic prejudice against this narrative voice which has prevailed for at least a century. For instance, in 2004 Eugene Goodheart pointed out that: "In the age of perspectivism, in which all claims to authority are suspect, the omniscient narrator is an archaism to be patron ized when he is found in the works of the past and to be scorned when he appears in contemporary work" (1). How are we to evaluate novels which employ an ostensibly redundant nine teenth century form in the twenty-first century? Are they conservative and nostalgic
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Dissertation•
02 Jul 2015
TL;DR: In this article, a broad range of imagery, language and cultural references used to depict amateur or inexpert encounters with computing technologies are identified, and examined in the context of experimental literature.
Abstract: is thesis considers the portrayal of uncertain or amateur encounters with new technologies in the late twentieth century. Focusing on "ctional responses to the incipient technological and cultural changes wrought by the rise of the personal computer, I demonstrate how authors during this period drew on experiences of empowerment and uncertainty to convey the impact of a period of intense technological transition. From the increasing availability of word processing software in the 1980s to the exponential popularity of the “World Wide Web”, I explore how perceptions of an “information revolution” tended to emphasise the increasing speed, ease and expansiveness of global communications, while more doubtful commentators expressed anxieties about the pace and effects of technological change. Critical approaches to the cultural impact of computing technologies have tended to overlook the role played by perceptions of expertise and familiarity, and my thesis seeks to redress this by identifying a broad range of imagery, language and cultural references used to depict amateur or inexpert encounters with computing technologies. My interest in literary representations of amateur or marginalised users of computing technology reveals how the ease and speed of reading and writing promised by technological expertise can be countered by uncertainty arising from limited understanding of the complex processes involved. In a pre-smartphone age, the computer loomed as an object which was simultaneously baffling and enchanting, "lled with potential but also obscure in its fundamental workings. Examining instances within experimental literary "ction and poetry which portray, imply, or respond to, encounters with personal computing, I demonstrate how individuals’ attempts to understand a technologically-in%ected world can be described and enacted by the use of unusual narrative and poetic devices, where experimental literary strategies work to recreate the complex sensations associated with thrilling, difficult, or incomprehensible aspects of information technologies.
48 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: The authors examines le Carre's 1960s and 1970s Cold War novels in their historical context, and devotes a chapter each to: Call for the Dead (1961), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), The Looking Glass War (1965), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974), The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) and Smiley's People (1979).
Abstract: This thesis examines John le Carre’s 1960s and 1970s Cold-War novels in their historical context, and devotes a chapter each to: Call for the Dead (1961), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), The Looking Glass War (1965), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974), The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) and Smiley’s People (1979). The thesis argues, contra the critical and popular consensus, that far from being ‘neutral’ representations of Cold War politics, these novels give expression to a powerful liberal-national ideology. The thesis breaks down into three themes. First, le Carre’s representation of the British state is scrutinised via the intelligence services. Although le Carre’s novels have been interpreted as anti-establishment, close historicist analysis discloses a contradictory affirmation of the British establishment. The state is decried and disavowed by the novels’ protagonists for its bureaucracy, inefficiency and expedient morality, but this is a distraction from these protagonists’ actions’ defence and reassertion of the state. Second, le Carre’s representation of the British nation is examined wherein the discursive field of ‘nation’ provides insight into who and what was being fought for in the Cold War. These projections of British nationality, of a neutral ‘way of life’, also expose anxieties about British post-war social reconstruction, British Empire and British decline. The books constitute a reassertion of a conservative British nationalism, probing but ultimately reaffirming traditional class hierarchies and British ‘decency’ both at home and abroad. Thirdly, le Carre’s representation of Communism, the West’s political enemy, is analysed, offering insight into the tactical and ideological British anti-Communist effort during the Cold War. Communism is presented as an existential threat to the British society but without any clear ideological motive being revealed. In these novels a trenchant anti-Communism disproves critical claims that le Carre’s work proposes moral equivalence between East and West.
22 citations
TL;DR: This paper studied the role of real readers without due attention to real authors and how to account for the increased prominence of omniscient narration in literary fiction over the last two decades, and found that contemporary omniscience differs from the classic omnisciences of eighteenth-and nineteenth-century fiction, and what does that difference say about the cultural status of the novel in current public discourse.
Abstract: This paper sketches out some methodological coordinates for investigating the formal category of narrative voice in a broader discursive context. It seeks to reformulate the classic model of narrative communication in order to redress the imbalance of current narratological scholarship, which focuses on theorizing the role of real readers without due attention to real authors. I have developed this approach to investigate and explain a specific problem: how to account for the increased prominence of omniscient narration in literary fiction over the last two decades. Does contemporary omniscience differ from the classic omniscience of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fiction, and if so, what does that difference say about the cultural status of the novel in current public discourse? 1 I’ll begin by illustrating this problem through a brief discussion of narrative voice in William Makepeace Thackeray’s 1848 Vanity Fair and Martin Amis’ 1995 The Information. At one point in Thackeray’s novel, the narrator pauses to address readers as follows: If, a few pages back, the present writer claimed the privilege of peeping into Miss Amelia Sedley’s bedroom, and understanding with the omniscience of the novelist all the gentle pains and passions which were tossing upon that in
18 citations
01 Jan 2013
15 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jan 2014
14 citations
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TL;DR: Leaders of 23 of 139 public research institutions and public-college systems surveyed this year by The Chronicle will make more than $500,000, an increase from the 17 identified in last year's slightly smaller survey.
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TL;DR: Cutler as mentioned in this paper presents a Translator's Preface Preface and Preface for English-to-Arabic Translating Translators (TSPT) with a preface by Jonathan Cutler.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a text and its reading of events, characters, and speech representation for the first time, with a focus on focalization and level and voice levels.
Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Story: events 3. Story: characters 4. Text: time 5. Text: characterization 6. Text: focalization 7. Narration: levels and voices 8. Narration: speech representation 9. The text and its reading 10. Conclusion 11. Towards...:afterthoughts, almost twenty years later
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Book•
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TL;DR: Through a series of readings in the work of the decisive triumvirate of Victorian fiction, Dickens, Trollope and Wilkie Collins, Miller investigates the novel as an oblique form of social control as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Through a series of readings in the work of the decisive triumvirate of Victorian fiction, Dickens, Trollope and Wilkie Collins, Miller investigates the novel as an oblique form of social control.
655 citations