Download or read book Sputnik Caledonia written by Andrew Crumey and published by Picador USA. This book was released on 2008 with total page 574 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robbie dreams of going to space. In 1970s Scotland this marks him out almost as much as his eccentric family does. Educated in the ways of the Left, Robbie can't entertain the idea of going into orbit with the capitalist Americans. So he gets a 'teach yourself' Russian book & settles down with Einstein's 'Meaning of relativity' by his side.
Download or read book Shapes of Time in British Twenty First Century Quantum Fiction written by Sonia Front and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-04 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the notion of time and temporality and its various conceptualizations in the theories of the new physics, utilized as a thematic and formal framework in the British novel of the twenty-first century. As the Newtonian conception of reality does not provide a reliable framework within which to situate human experience and generate meaning, fiction writers have recognized quantum mechanics as a potent source from which to draw in search of new metaphors. The quantum has become a part of the understanding of reality, and its concepts and assumptions have been absorbed into the textual structure and content of literary fiction. Shapes of Time in British Twenty-First Century Quantum Fiction examines human temporality as mediated by the timeshapes imagined within the context of the new physics, and explores the philosophical implications for human temporality and identity of situating an individual within the realm of physical time. Its chapters deal with various concepts of the new physics connected with temporality, and their appropriation in a selected novel: parallel universes in Andrew Crumey’s Sputnik Caledonia (2008), eternal recurrence and Poincaré’s theorem in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (2004), chaos theory in Samantha Harvey’s The Wilderness (2009), and the end of time in Scarlett Thomas’s The End of Mr. Y (2006). Each of them corresponds to a different conceptual shape of time: tree, concertina, spiral and snapshot, respectively, which is enacted on the formal level. Analyzing the new time constructs in a narrative, this book thus uncovers passages between scientific and humanistic standpoints, and reveals quantum fiction to be an effective tool for visualizing the subjective non-homogenous experience of private time.
Download or read book Bridges between Cultures written by Tomasz Kalaga and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-30 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Centred on the metaphor of bridges and knots, this volume investigates the dialogic and dialectical relationships between socially dissimilar and topographically distant cultures. The contributions here explore various methodological frameworks for discourses and theories that purport to conceptualize cultural spaces, which – as opposed to objective, geographical areas – are characterized by the propensity to bind topographical distances by means of symbolic ties and perimeters. The chapters address possible juxtapositions and intersections of spatial and temporal dimensions of cultural practice, religious and ethical “ties and knots” between lands and cultures, disconnections between historical, literary and cultural epochs, discourses of cultural entanglement and cultural ensnarement on individual and social levels, and the possibilities of raising aesthetic bridges between various cultures in music, poetry and visual arts, among other topics.
Download or read book Hours like bright sweets in a jar written by Sonia Front and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-10-16 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The papers gathered in the present collection investigate time and temporality from a number of interdisciplinary perspectives: literary or film studies, postcolonial theory, physics, philosophy, psychology, urban studies, history and gender studies. This wide spectrum of scholarly approaches encompasses chapters dealing with the convergences of time and the human psyche; time and the body; time and memory; time and trauma; time and change; time and cultural reproduction; time and language; time and the city; and time and identity. It transpires that the imaginary refigurations of time more often than not constitute resistance against the linearity of chronometric time, represented by institutions, capitalism, government and power, and attempts to colonize the human psyche. In attempting to assault this hegemony of linear time, literary, cinematographic and cultural practice enacts exploding temporalities to reflect the multifacetedness and multidirectionality of the human experience of time.
Download or read book Scotland as Science Fiction written by Caroline McCracken-Flesher and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Out of the mainstream but ahead of the tide, that is Scottish Science Fiction. Science Fiction emphasizes "progress" through technology, advanced mental states, or future times. How does Scotland, often considered a land of the past, lead in Science Fiction? "Left behind" by international politics, Scots have cultivated alternate places and different times as sites of identity so that Scotland can seem a futuristic fiction itself. This book explores the tensions between science and a particular society that produce an innovative science fiction. Essays consider Scottish thermodynamics, Celtic myth, the rigors of religious "conversion," Scotland's fractured politics yet civil society, its languages of alterity (Scots, Gaelic, allegory, poetry), and the lure of the future. From Peter Pan and Dr. Jekyll to the poetry of Edwin Morgan and the worlds of Muriel Spark, Ken Macleod, or Iain M. Banks, Scotland's creative complex yields a literature that models the future for Science Fiction.
Download or read book Sputnik Caledonia written by Andrew Crumey and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2008 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold and exuberant tale of childhood, space travel and telepathyRobbie Coyle is an imaginative kid. He wants so badly to become Scotland's first cosmonaut that he tries to teach himself Russian and trains for space exploration in the cupboard under the sink. But the place to which his fantasies later take him is far from the safety of his suburban childhood. In a communist state, in a closed, bleak town, the mysterious Red Star heralds his discovery of cruelty and of love, and the possibility that the most passionate of dreams may only be a chimera . . . 'Sputnik Caledonia should leave you breathless with admiration. A quantum leap forward for the Scottish novel' Scotland on Sunday 'A brio of a book . . . One for the boys, big and little - and for those of us who wonder just what does go on inside a boy's head' Spectator 'Andrew Crumey has fused a thrilling personal narrative with quantum mechanics in a way that somehow looks easy . . . Never has astrophysics seemed so touching and funny' Daily Telegraph 'There are echoes here of Alasdair Gray's Lanark; echoes of Jonathan Coe's What a Carve Up! . . . A real haunting triumph' Observer
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to British Fiction 1945 2010 written by David James and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-06 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cambridge Companion to British Fiction since 1945 provides insight into the critical traditions shaping the literary landscape of modern Britain.
Download or read book Notional Identities written by Thomas Christie and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-07-18 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Notional Identities takes up the challenge of engaging with the popular genres of speculative fiction and crime fiction by Scottish authors from the mid-1970s until the beginning of the twenty-first century, examining a variety of significant novels from across the decades in the light of wider considerations of ideology, genre and national identity. The book investigates the extent to which the national political and cultural climate of this tumultuous era informed the narrative form and social commentary of such works, and considers the manner in which—and the extent to which—a specific and identifiably Scottish response to these ideological matters can be identified in popular prose fiction during the period under discussion. Although Scottish literary fiction of recent decades has been studied in considerable depth, Scottish popular genre literature has received markedly less critical scrutiny in comparison. Notional Identities aims to help in redressing this balance, examining popular Scottish texts of the stated period in order to reflect upon whether a significant relationship can be discerned between genre fiction and the mainstream of Scottish literary writing, and to consider the characteristics of the literary connections which exist between these different modes of writing.
Download or read book You Complete the Masterpiece written by Guy Mankowski and published by John Hunt Publishing. This book was released on 2024-11-26 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Millennial author Jude is lost in obscurity until he's saved by an award bequeathed by Alberto Valdez, the highly controversial surrealist Spanish author who first inspired him to write. But given Valdez's unsolved disappearance, the motives behind his giving Jude the award are a mystery. Jude soon learns that there is more to the award than he'd first realised, and it requires him to complete Valdez's final masterpiece. But why was he chosen? And can one person ever really know another - let alone complete their work? You Complete the Masterpiece is part jet-setting thriller, part literary puzzle, and part indictment of corruption in the #MeToo era.
Download or read book Facing the Bear written by Trevor Royle and published by Birlinn. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Culloden explores Scotland’s history during the Cold War. Between the end of the Second World War and the collapse of Communism, confrontation with the Soviet Union was an everyday reality. As part of NATO’s response, Scotland played a key role in the alliance’s forward maritime defense strategy, aimed at containing the Soviet threat from naval and air forces. During this period, 10 percent of the UK’s naval and air forces were based in Scotland, and there was a substantial U.S. presence, as well as top secret satellite and command stations. In Facing the Bear, Trevor Royle paints a fascinating portrait of this extraordinary period, examining not just the wider military and political contexts, but also showing how the defense industry brought huge economic benefits, how CND maintained a high-profile presence, and how anti-nuclear sentiments underpinned much of the left’s thinking in Scotland and contributed to the hegemony enjoyed by the Labour Party in Scotland during the Cold War. Praise for Facing the Bear “Engrossing . . . . Like a military commander at the top of his game, Royle marshals his material to maximum effect to show how Scotland has been shaped by, and also helped shape, the Cold War . . . . He ranges far and wide and has that rare talent to marry the local with the geopolitical . . . . But this is not simply a story of military hardware and confrontation. Royle is very interesting on how the Cold War influenced our cultural life from the novel to poetry and the protest song.” —Barclay McBain, The Herald (UK)
Download or read book The Great Chain of Unbeing written by Andrew Crumey and published by SCB Distributors. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andrew Crumey’s novels are renowned for their unique blend of science, history, philosophy and humour. Now he brings the same insight and originality to this story cycle whose title offers an ironic twist on the ancient doctrine of connectedness, the great chain of being. Here we find a blind man contemplating the light of an atom bomb, a musician disturbed by a conspiracy of radio waves, a visitor to Moscow caught up in a comic case of mistaken identity, a woman on a Greek island trying to become a different person. We range across time, from the Renaissance to a globally-warmed future, across light-years in search of hallucinogenic space-plankton, and into magical worlds of talking insects and bottled fire. Fans of Crumey’s acclaimed novels will occasionally spot hints of themes and figures that have recurred throughout his fiction; readers new to his work will delight in finding subtle links within the pieces. Are they all part of some larger untold story? We have nothing to lose but the chains of our imagination: what lies beyond is a great change of being. ‘The Great Chain of Unbeing is unboring, unusual and quite brilliant.’ Adam Roberts in The Literary Review 'It is a delightful introduction to his singularly riddling work - and in Crumeyesque style it is an intermezzo that doubles as an overture.' Stuart Kelly in The Scotsman The Great Chain of Unbeing, a book bursting with fertile fusions of ideas by this Scottish Borges .' The Sunday Herald
Download or read book A Companion to Scottish Literature written by Gerard Carruthers and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2023-12-08 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to Scottish Literature offers fresh readings of major authors and periods of Scottish literary production from the first millennium to the present. Bringing together contributions by many of the world’s leading experts in the field, this comprehensive resource provides the historical background of Scottish literature, highlights new critical approaches, and explores wider cultural and institutional contexts. Dealing with texts in the languages of Scots, English, and Gaelic, the Companion offers modern perspectives on the historical milieux, thematic contexts and canonical writers of Scottish literature. Original essays apply the most up-to-date critical and scholarly analyses to a uniquely wide range of topics, such as Gaelic literature, national and diasporic writing, children’s literature, Scottish drama and theatre, gender and sexuality, and women’s writing. Critical readings examine William Dunbar, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Muriel Spark and Carol Ann Duffy, amongst others. With full references and guidance for further reading, as well as numerous links to online resources, A Companion to Scottish Literature is essential reading for advanced students and scholars of Scottish literature, as well as academic and non-academic readers with an interest in the subject.
Download or read book Scott land written by Stuart Kelly and published by Birlinn. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No writer has ever been as famous as Sir Walter Scott once was; and no writer has ever enjoyed such huge acclaim followed by such absolute neglect and outright hostility. But Scotland would not be Scotland except for Scott. All the icons of Scottishness have their roots in Scott's novels, poems, public events and histories. It's a legacy both inspiring and constraining, and just one of the ironies that fuse Scott and Scotland into Scott-land. In this book Stuart Kelly reveals Scott the paradox: the celebrity unknown, the nationalist unionist, the aristocrat loved by communists, the forward-looking reactionary. Part literary study, part biography, part travelogue, part surreptitious autobiography, Scott-land unveils a complex, contradictory man and the complex contradictory country he created. Insightful, accessible, witty and melancholy, this is a 'voyage around my fatherland' like no other.
Download or read book I Am Because You Are written by Pippa Goldschmidt and published by Cargo Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-21 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In November 1915 Albert Einstein published his now world famous General Theory of Relativity. It introduced to physics new concepts such as the curvature of space-time and black holes, and it made extraordinary predictions about the bending of light around massive objects. I Am Because You Are is a timely collection of new fiction and non-fiction from novelists and science writers, all inspired by the theme of Relativity. Each contributor treats the subject in their own unique way. The results are charming, witty, sometimes challenging but always accessible, presenting complex science themes in imaginative, easy-to-understand and highly entertaining ways. Contributors include novelists Andrew Crumey, Dilys Rose and Neil Williamson, alongside popular science communicators Pedro Ferreira and Jo Dunkley. Edited by acclaimed, award-winning writers Pippa Goldschmidt and Tania Hershman, I Am Because You Are will be the perfect vehicle for both press and public to engage with this landmark centenary.
Download or read book How I Left The National Grid written by Guy Mankowski and published by John Hunt Publishing. This book was released on 2015-02-27 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1980s Robert Wardner, eccentric frontman of post-punk band ‘The National Grid’ became famous overnight after committing an act on Top Of The Pops that shocked a nation. But a year later he had vanished, leaving a 'masterpiece' record abandoned in his wake. More darkly, rumours grew that his disappearance was due to him having brutally murdered an obsessed young fan. Twenty-five years later word has spread that the singer is alive and scheming to re-emerge. Sam, a journalist who helped first bring his band to the public eye, is commissioned to track Wardner down so he will at last tell his story for a book. Finding Wardner is the only way for Sam to save his collapsed career and relationship. But it gradually becomes apparent that by cornering his quarry Sam may in fact be planning his own murder.
Download or read book The Feminist Architecture of Postmodern Anti Tales written by Kendra Reynolds and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-23 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph aims to counter the assumption that the anti-tale is a ‘subversive twin’ or dark side of the fairy tale coin, instead it argues that the anti-tale is a genre rich in complexity and radical potential that fundamentally challenges the damaging ideologies and socializing influence of fairy tales. The Feminist Architecture of Postmodern Anti-Tales: Space, Time and Bodies highlights how anti-tales take up timely debates about revising old structures, opening our minds up to a broader spectrum of experience or ways of viewing the world and its inhabitants. They show us alternative architectures for the future by deconstructing established spatio-temporal laws and structures, as well as limited ideas surrounding the body, and ultimately liberate us from the shackles of a single-minded and simplistic masculine reality currently upheld by dominant social forces and patriarchal fairy tales themselves. It is only when these masculine fairy tales and social architectures are deconstructed that new, more inclusive feminine realities and futures can be brought into being.
Download or read book Lightship Anthology written by Stephen Beechinor and published by Alma Books. This book was released on 2012-11-28 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lightship Anthology 2 is the second collection of short stories, poems, flash fiction and a first chapter from the 2012 Lightship International Literary Prize winners. Lightship Publishing aims to discover and mentor the best new literary voices writing in English, and this is an exciting international collection from Indian, American, Australian, Swedish, French, Irish and British authors.
