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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01 Dec 2017
TL;DR: A study of Franzen's Freedom (2010) reveals it as a post-postmodernist novel which attempts to depict the post 9/11 American society as discussed by the authors, and it also tries to show that human experience could no longer be rendered through fragmented characters or plotless narrative.
Abstract: The catastrophic September 11, 2001 events did not only mark a new epoch in contemporary world history, but also ushered in the beginning of a new phase in literary history. It signaled the demise of postmodernism, which flourished during the period from 1960s to 1990s, and inaugurated a new phase in American fiction referred to by some critics as post-postmodernism, late postmodernism or new realism. A study of Franzen's Freedom (2010) reveals it as a post-postmodernist novel which attempts to depict the post 9/11 American society. This paper attempts to show that the black irony or cynical detachment of the long acclaimed postmodernism can no longer represent the post 9/11 reality. It also tries to show that human experience could no longer be rendered through fragmented characters or plotless narrative. A study of Freedom reveals Franzen’s adoption of several devices that are characteristic of post-postmodernism in addition to employing other devices that pertain to postmodernism.
DOI•
TL;DR: Byatt as discussed by the authors examines the evolution of A. S. Byatt's writing in her later works, from the 2000s to the present, in particular the increasing enmeshment of the human and the non-human in her apprehension of embodiment and embeddedness.
Abstract: ABSTRACT This paper examines the evolution of A. S. Byatt’s writing in her later works, from the 2000s to the present, in particular the increasing enmeshment of the human and the non-human in her apprehension of embodiment and embeddedness. Her short fiction helped her develop transcorporeal ontologies. It sheds light on the parallel endeavour in her novels to increasingly connect, on an epistemological level, the cross-breeding of scientific disciplines. The premise of this integrated approach is to be found in the highly conceptual novel from 2000, The Biographer’s Tale, in which the first-person narrator’s dissatisfaction with social constructionism initiates his quest: ‘I must have things’. The writing project outlined at the end of the novel heralds Byatt’s own later practice: ‘I could mix warnings with hints, descriptions with explanations, science with little floating flashes of literature’. In her latest novel, Ragnarok (2011), her collection of short stories, Little Black Book of Stories (2003), and her latest short story ‘Sea Story’, she shapes posthuman subjects by delivering the enmeshed ‘onto-stories’ of humans, things, and gods.
01 Jan 2020
TL;DR: This article revisited the eighteenth-century discourse of sensibility to consider the emotional appeal of the animal cry, which has traditionally functioned as a moral plea for more just and inclusive communities of similarly suffering creatures, and has occasionally been linked to music too.
Abstract: This chapter examines the ties between animal cries, musical images, and the cultural work of sympathy. It begins by reviewing recent as well as classic insights about the novel and recalibrates Mikhail Bakthin’s famous account of the genre’s polyphonic discourse in a way that makes room for its animal component. After nuancing anthropocentric views of polyphony, I revisit the eighteenth-century discourse of sensibility to consider the emotional appeal of the animal cry, which has traditionally functioned as a moral plea for more just and inclusive communities of similarly suffering creatures, and has occasionally been linked to music too. These insights are subsequently applied to relevant novels by two canonical writers, J.M. Coetzee and Richard Powers, both of whom have redeployed the motif of animal music in ways that stretch orthodox views of community while steering clear of the overt sentimentalism often associated with the nonhuman cry. In the case of Disgrace, a soon-to-be-euthanized dog is tentatively included in a hypothetical opera, and in the case of Orfeo, the recurring image of animal music points in the direction of an unusually inclusive multispecies democracy, even if the suspicion lingers that the novel’s human composer finally receives more attention than this nonhuman audio, and the introduction of topics like extinction and media like iPods complicates the situation considerably.
14 Dec 2022
TL;DR: This article examined the first-person narrator Desiderio's paralepsis, i.e. how he violates the mimetic rules of firstperson narration by presenting knowledge that should be inaccessible to him.
Abstract: This article focuses on the unnatural narration in Angela Carter’s novel The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and addresses the issue of how to make sense of it. Drawing upon unnatural narratology, it examines the first-person narrator Desiderio’s paralepsis, i.e. how he violates the mimetic rules of first-person narration by presenting knowledge that should be inaccessible to him. In terms of interpretation, the study first evaluates two options – the naturalizing one that reads Desiderio as an unreliable narrator and the unnaturalizing one that foregrounds the nonrepresentative nature of the narrative – and identifies their respective deficiencies. It further proposes a form of naturalization that sees first-person narration as modeled on the genre of novel and attributes Desiderio’s paralepsis to his narratorial invention. It is argued that in coming to terms with the narrator’s omniscient qualities, we should duly consider his characterological motivation and overall performance of narrative authority. Desiderio’s assumption of competencies that he does not properly have in fact reflects a desire for control and mastery over his life.
16 Dec 2018
TL;DR: Aapelin et al. as discussed by the authors proposed a method to find a solution to the problem of "kaikkitietavyy" by using a set of annotated documents from the World Wide Web.
Abstract: Wilhelm Horsma vastaan kaikkitietavyys.
Kaksi kertojaa Aapelin romaanissa Siunattu hulluus
Artikkelissani tarkastelen Aapelin (Simo Puupposen) esikoisromaanin Siunattu hulluus (1948) kahta kertojaa, epaluotettavaa minakertojaa ja "kaikkitietavaa" (heterodiegeettista, tarinan tapahtumien ulkopuolista) kertojaa, pohdin narratologista kasitetta "kaikkitietavyys", vertailen kertojien tietamysta ja maailmankatsomusta seka osoitan, etta kertojien valille rakentuu eettinen kontrasti.
Siunattu hulluus kertoo Rummukaisen veljesten hullujenhuonematkasta. Siina tutkitaan erilaisia nakemyksia hulluuden olemuksesta henkiloiden dialogin ja sisakertomusten kautta. Myos ylemman tason kaksi kertojaa liittyvat tahan hulluudesta kaytyyn keskusteluun. Ensimmainen kertoja on teoksen kehyskertomuksen paivakirjaansa kirjoittava ylakansakoulunopettaja Wilhelm Horsma. Toinen kertoja on tarinan tapahtumien ulkopuolinen, tiedoiltaan ja viisaudeltaan ylivoimainen kertoja, joka kertoo veljesten seikkailuista. Horsma ei tunne kaikkia tapahtumia muuten kuin kuulopuheelta, ja han on muutenkin ironisoituva ja epaluotettava. Kaikkein epaluotettavin han on eettisessa mielessa, silla han maarittelee Rummukaisen veljekset, eritoten Elmerin, joka on hanen mukaansa "vahajarkinen" ja "loysapainen". Erityisen epaeettista Horsman toiminta on siksi, etta han on "kansankynttilana" yhteisonsa arvostama vallankayttaja. "Kaikkitietava" kertoja sen sijaan pidattaytyy tiedostaan huolimatta luonnehtimasta veljeksia millaan tavalla. Kieltaytyessaan maarittelemasta veljeksia se saavuttaa eettisen auktoriteetin aseman romaanissa. Se on humaani ja viisas kertojanaani, jota haluaisin nimittaa kaikkitietavaksi.
Vaikka "kaikkitietavyys" kuulostaa vanhanaikaiselta kasitteelta, laheskaan kaikki tutkijat eivat ole halukkaita luopumaan siita. Narratologisessa teoriaosuudessa pohdin "kaikkitietavyyden" kasitteen problematiikkaa ja erilaisia tulkintoja sen merkityksesta. Kysyn, miksi "kaikkitietavyys" laitetaan niin usein lainausmerkkeihin? Onko kertojan mahdollista olla kaikkitietava ja mita se niin ollen voisi tarkoittaa? Viittaan Narrative-lehdessa kaytyyn keskusteluun, johon ovat ottaneet osaa mm. Jonathan Culler (2004), William Nelles (2006), Meir Sternberg (2007), Paul Dawson (2009) ja Barbara K. Olson (2007). Esittelen myos lyhyesti Paul Dawsonin teosta The Return of the Omniscient Narrator (2013).
Etenemisjarjestys on seuraava: 1) Aapelin teoksen esittely 2) kertojien esittely 3) narratologinen osuus ja 4) eettisen kontrastin osoittaminen kahden kertojan valilla ja 5) loppupaatelmat
References
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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.
2,945 citations
TL;DR: Postmodernisme membawa berbagai efek terhadap kehidupan. as discussed by the authors, salah satunya dalam karya sastra termasuk puisi.
Abstract: Postmodernisme membawa berbagai efek terhadap kehidupan. Salah satunya dalam karya sastra termasuk puisi. Dimulai dengan modernisme tahun 1960an. Buku ini berisi permasalahan sejarah postmodernisme dan kritik-kritik tentang postmodernisme terhadap puisi, juga model postmodernisme terhadap parodi dan politik. Selain memberikan fokus terhadap kesejarahan metafiksi.
1,910 citations
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.
Abstract: Foreword by Jonathan Cutler Translator's Preface PrefaceIntroduction 1. Order 2. Duration 3. Frequency 4. Mood 5. VoiceAfterword Bibliography Index
1,852 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1983
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
1,191 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1988
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