Download or read book Omensetter s Luck written by William H. Gass and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1997-04-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The most important work of fiction by an American in this literary generation." -The New Republic Now celebrating the 50th anniversary of its publication, Omensetter's Luck is the masterful first novel by the author of The Tunnel, Middle C, On Being Blue, and Eyes: Novellas and Stories. Greeted as a masterpiece when it was first published in 1966, Omensetter's Luck is the quirky, impressionistic, and breathtakingly original story of an ordinary community galvanized by the presence of an extraordinary man. Set in a small Ohio town in the 1890s, it chronicles - through the voices of various participants and observers - the confrontation between Brackett Omensetter, a man of preternatural goodness, and the Reverend Jethro Furber, a preacher crazed with a propensity for violent thoughts. Omensetter's Luck meticulously brings to life a specific time and place as it illuminates timeless questions about life, love, good, and evil. This edition includes an afterword written by William Gass in 1997. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Download or read book The Stranger written by Albert Camus and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-08-08 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the intrigue of a psychological thriller, Camus's masterpiece gives us the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. Behind the intrigue, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd" and describes the condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life. First published in 1946; now in translation by Matthew Ward.
Download or read book Philosophy and the Novel written by Alan H. Goldman and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-04-05 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alan H. Goldman presents an original and lucid account of the relationship between philosophy and the novel. In the first part, on philosophy of novels, he defends theories of literary value and interpretation. Literary value, the value of literary works as such, is a species of aesthetic value. Goldman argues that works have aesthetic value when they simultaneously engage all our mental capacities: perceptual, cognitive, imaginative, and emotional. This view contrasts with now prevalent narrower formalist views of literary value. According to it, cognitive engagement with novels includes appreciation of their broad themes and the theses these imply, often moral and hence philosophical theses, which are therefore part of the novels' literary value. Interpretation explains elements of works so as to allow readers maximum appreciation, so as to maximize the literary value of the texts as written. Once more, Goldman's view contrasts with narrower views of literary interpretation, especially those which limit it to uncovering what authors intended. One implication of Goldman's broader view is the possibility of incompatible but equally acceptable interpretations, which he explores through a discussion of rival interpretations of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. Goldman goes on to test the theory of value by explaining the immense appeal of good mystery novels in its terms. The second part of the book, on philosophy in novels, explores themes relating to moral agency—moral development, motivation, and disintegration—in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, John Irving's The Cider House Rules, and Joseph Conrad's Nostromo. By narrating the course of characters' lives, including their inner lives, over extended periods, these novels allow us to vicariously experience the characters' moral progressions, positive and negative, to learn in a more focused way moral truths, as we do from real life experiences.
Download or read book Science Fiction and Philosophy written by Susan Schneider and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-03-07 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring numerous updates and enhancements, Science Fiction and Philosophy, 2nd Edition, presents a collection of readings that utilize concepts developed from science fiction to explore a variety of classic and contemporary philosophical issues. Uses science fiction to address a series of classic and contemporary philosophical issues, including many raised by recent scientific developments Explores questions relating to transhumanism, brain enhancement, time travel, the nature of the self, and the ethics of artificial intelligence Features numerous updates to the popular and highly acclaimed first edition, including new chapters addressing the cutting-edge topic of the technological singularity Draws on a broad range of science fiction’s more familiar novels, films, and TV series, including I, Robot, The Hunger Games, The Matrix, Star Trek, Blade Runner, and Brave New World Provides a gateway into classic philosophical puzzles and topics informed by the latest technology
Download or read book Graphic Novels as Philosophy written by Jeff McLaughlin and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2017-08-18 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contributions by Eric Bain-Selbo, Jeremy Barris, Maria Botero, Manuel “Mandel” Cabrera Jr., David J. Leichter, Ian MacRae, Jeff McLaughlin, Alfonso Muñoz-Corcuera, Corry Shores, and Jarkko Tuusvuori In a follow-up to Comics as Philosophy, international contributors address two questions: Which philosophical insights, concepts, and tools can shed light on the graphic novel? And how can the graphic novel cast light on the concerns of philosophy? Each contributor ponders a well-known graphic novel to illuminate ways in which philosophy can untangle particular combinations of image and written word for deeper understanding. Jeff McLaughlin collects a range of essays to examine notable graphic novels within the framework posited by these two questions. One essay discusses how a philosopher discovered that the panels in Jeff Lemire’s Essex County do not just replicate a philosophical argument, but they actually give evidence to an argument that could not have existed otherwise. Another essay reveals how Chris Ware’s manipulation of the medium demonstrates an important sense of time and experience. Still another describes why Maus tends to be more profound than later works that address the Holocaust because of, not in spite of, the fact that the characters are cartoon animals rather than human. Other works contemplated include Will Eisner’s A Contract with God, Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, and Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza. Mainly, each essay, contributor, graphic novelist, and artist is doing the same thing: trying to tell us how the world is—at least from their point of view.
Download or read book Henry James and the Philosophical Novel written by Merle A. Williams and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1993-04-08 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Henry James and the Philosophical Novel breaks fresh ground by examining James's unique position as a philosophical novelist, closely associated with the climate of ideas generated by his brother William. It considers storytelling as a mode of philosophical enquiry, showing how a range of distinguished thinkers have relied on fictional narrative as a technique for formulating and clarifying their ideas; and investigates (with close reference to his novels) the affiliations between James's practice as a novelist and contemporary epistemological, moral, and linguistic concerns.
Download or read book Iris Murdoch Philosopher Meets Novelist written by Sofia de Melo Araújo and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2011-05-25 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Iris Murdoch, Philosopher Meets Novelist aims to gather some of the world’s present experts on Iris Murdoch, in an effort to promote dialogue between philosophy and literature. This is due not only to the nature of Iris Murdoch’s work itself, but also to our belief that within Humanistic Studies there is a constant need for breaking down disciplinarian barriers and reaching a deeper, fuller awareness of human thinking. Thus, the book brings together scholars from a variety of fields and places—Brazil, England, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Taiwan, and the United States—and testifies to the interest that the work of Murdoch continues to inspire. The book is divided into two major sections: Part A, Reading Philosophies in Literature, includes articles focusing on Iris Murdoch’s philosophical concerns and their general influence in her work; Part B, Reading Literature through Philosophy, is intended as a sort of application ground, a series of case-studies wherein authors depart from novels to retrieve the underlying philosophical thinking.
Download or read book Dostoevsky the Thinker written by James Patrick Scanlan and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For all his distance from philosophy, Dostoevsky was one of the most philosophical of writers. Drawing on his novels, essays, letters and notebooks, this volume examines Dostoevsky's philosophical thought.
Download or read book Proust written by Vincent Descombes and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the voice of the narrator of Remembrance of Things Past, Proust observes of the painter Elstir that the paintings are bolder than the artist; Elstir the painter is bolder than Elstir the theorist. This book applies the same distinction Proust; the Proustian novel is bolder than Proust the theorist. By this the author means that the novel is philosophically bolder, that it pursues further the task Proust identifies as the writer's work: to explain life, to elucidate what has been lived in obscurity and confusion. In this, the novelist and the philosopher share a common goal: to clarify the obscure in order to arrive at the truth. It follows that Proust's real philosophy of the novel is to be found not in the speculative passages of Remembrance, which merely echo the philosophical commonplaces of his time, but in the truly novelistic or narrative portions of his text. In Against Sainte-Beuve, Proust sets forth his ideas about literature in the form of a critique of the method of Sainte-Beuve. Scholars who have studied Proust's notebooks describe the way in which this essay was taken over by bits of narrative originally intended as illustration supporting its theses. The philosophical portions of Remembrance were not added to the narrative as an afterthought, designed to bring out its meaning. What happened was the reverse: the novel was born of a desire to illustrate the propositions of the essay. Why then should we not find the novel more philosophically advanced than the essay? Reversing the usual order followed by literary critics, the author interprets the novel as an elucidation, and not as a simple transposition, of the essay. The book is not only a general interpretation of Proust's novel and its construction; it includes detailed discussions of such topics as literature and philosophy, the nature of the literary genres, the poetics of the novel, the definition of art, modernity and postmodernity, and the sociology of literature.
Download or read book Iris Murdoch Philosophical Novelist written by Miles Leeson and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-10-27 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a concise and highly readable reassessment of Iris Murdoch's engagement with philosophy throughout her life and proposes that she was, most importantly, a philosophical novelist. By investigating her use of philosophical argument in her fictional writing, it becomes clear that her narratives always depend upon a strong metaphysical underpinning. Leeson proceeds thematically through the philosophical phases of Murdoch's life and develops a clear argument that Murdoch reacts against the philosophies of Sartre, Plato, Nietzsche and Heidegger not only in her philosophical writings but also in her fiction. Indeed, it is in her fiction that her philosophical argument is most persuasive and accessible. This timely study provides new information regarding Murdoch's engagement with Martin Heidegger and also provides a detailed critique of critics who have overlooked Murdoch's engagement with philosophy within her fiction.
Download or read book Postmodernism For Beginners written by Jim Powell and published by Red Wheel/Weiser. This book was released on 2007-08-21 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you are like most people, you’re not sure what Postmodernism is. And if this were like most books on the subject, it probably wouldn’t tell you. Besides what a few grumpy critics claim, Postmodernism is not a bunch of meaningless intellectual mind games. On the contrary, it is a reaction to the most profound spiritual and philosophical crisis of our time – the failure of the Enlightenment. Jim Powell takes the position that Postmodernism is a series of “maps” that help people find their way through a changing world. Postmodernism For Beginners features the thoughts of Foucault on power and knowledge, Jameson on mapping the postmodern, Baudrillard on the media, Harvey on time-space compression, Derrida on deconstruction and Deleuze and Guattari on rhizomes. The book also discusses postmodern artifacts such as Madonna, cyberpunk, Buddhist ecology, and teledildonics.
Download or read book The Novelist written by Jordan Castro and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2023-07-18 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Brisk and shockingly witty, exuberantly scatological as well as deeply wise, The Novelist is a delight. Jordan Castro is a rare new talent: an author highly attuned to the traditions he is working within while also offering a refreshingly fun sendup of life beset by the endless scroll."—Mary South, author of You Will Never Be Forgotten In Jordan Castro’s inventive, funny, and surprisingly tender first novel, we follow a young man over the course of a single morning as he tries and fails to write an autobiographical novel, finding himself instead drawn into the infinite spaces of Twitter, quotidian rituals, and his own mind. The act of making coffee prompts a reflection on the limits of self-knowledge; an editor’s embarrassing tweet sparks rage at the literary establishment; a meditation on first person versus third examines choice and action; an Instagram post about the ethics of having children triggers mimetic rivalry; the act of doing the dishes is at once ordinary and profound: one of the many small commitments that make up a life of stability. The Novelist: A Novel pays tribute to Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine and Thomas Bernhard’s Woodcutters, but in the end is a wholly original novel about language and consciousness, the internet and social media, and addiction and recovery.
Download or read book On Literature and Philosophy written by Naguib Mahfouz and published by Gingko Library. This book was released on 2015-11-15 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Naguib Mahfouz is one of the most important writers in contemporary Arabic literature. Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1988 (the only Arab writer to win the prize thus far), his novels helped bring Arabic literature onto the international stage. Far fewer people know his nonfiction works, however—a gap that this book fills. Bringing together Mahfouz’s early nonfiction writings (most penned during the 1930s) which have not previously been available in English, this volume offers a rare glimpse into the early development of the renowned author. As these pieces show, Mahfouz was deeply interested in literature and philosophy, and his early writings engage with the origins of philosophy, its development and place in the history of thought, as well its meaning writ large. In his literary essays, he discusses a wide range of authors, from Anton Chekov to his own Arab contemporaries like Taha Hussein. He also ventures into a host of important contemporary issues, including science and modernity, the growing movement for women’s rights in the Arab world, and emerging ideologies like socialism—all of which outline the growing challenges to traditional modes of living that we saw all around him. Together, these essays offer a fascinating window not just into the mind of Mahfouz himself but the changing landscape of Egypt during that time, from the development of Islam to the struggles between tradition, modernity, and the influences of the West.
Download or read book Ethics and Epics written by Bimal Krishna Matilal and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A scholar of eminence in the field of Indian philosophy, Bimal K. Matilal was one of the leading exponents of Indian logic and epistemology. Painstakingly compiled from Matilal's huge body of work, this collection of essays includes a set of previously unpublished essays and reveals the extraordinary depth of Matilal's philosophical interests.
Download or read book Sophie s World written by Jostein Gaarder and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
Download or read book The Philosopher s Pupil written by Iris Murdoch and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2010-07-20 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York TimesNotable Book: An “ingeniously plotted” tale of tragedy, comedy, and small-town gossip (The New York Times Book Review). The quiet English town of Ennistone is known for its peaceful, relaxing spa—a haven of restoration, rejuvenation, and calm. Until the night George McCaffrey’s car plunges into the cold waters of the canal, carrying with it his wife, Stella. And until the village’s most celebrated son, famed philosopher John Robert Rozanov, returns home, upending the lives of everyone with whom he comes in contact. Stirred up by talk of murder and morality, obsession and lust, religion and righteousness, the residents of Ennistone begin to spiral out of control, searching for answers and redemption for the sins of their peers—and discovering more about themselves than they ever wanted to know. With breakneck plotting and intricately flawed characters, The Philosopher’s Pupil is a darkly humorous novel from the Man Booker Prize–winning author of The Sea, The Sea, masterfully exploring the human condition and the inherent blend of comedy and tragedy therein.
Download or read book Henry Fielding s Tom Jones written by Bernard Harrison and published by London : published for Sussex University Press by Chatto & Windus. This book was released on 1975 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
