Download or read book The Comic Turn in Contemporary English Fiction written by Huw Marsh and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-07-09 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Comic Turn in Contemporary English Fiction explores the importance of comedy in contemporary literature and culture. In an era largely defined by a mood of crisis, bleakness, cruelty, melancholia, environmental catastrophe and collapse, Huw Marsh argues that contemporary fiction is as likely to treat these subjects comically as it is to treat them gravely, and that the recognition and proper analysis of this humour opens up new ways to think about literature. Structured around readings of authors including Martin Amis, Nicola Barker, Julian Barnes, Jonathan Coe, Howard Jacobson, Magnus Mills and Zadie Smith, this book suggests not only that much of the most interesting contemporary writing is funny and that there is a comic tendency in contemporary fiction, but also that this humour, this comic licence, allows writers of contemporary fiction to do peculiar and interesting things – things that are funny in the sense of odd or strange and that may in turn inspire a funny turn in readers. Marsh offers a series of original critical and theoretical frameworks for discussing questions of literary genre, style, affect and politics, demonstrating that comedy is an often neglected mode that plays a generative role in much of the most interesting contemporary writing, creating sites of rich political, stylistic, cognitive and ethical contestation whose analysis offers a new perspective on the present.
Download or read book The Comic Turn in Contemporary English Fiction written by Huw Marsh and published by Bloomsbury Academic. This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Comic Turn in Contemporary English Fiction explores the importance of comedy in contemporary literature and culture. In an era largely defined by a mood of crisis, bleakness, cruelty, melancholia, environmental catastrophe and collapse, Huw Marsh argues that contemporary fiction is as likely to treat these subjects comically as it is to treat them gravely, and that the recognition and proper analysis of this humour opens up new ways to think about literature. Structured around readings of authors including Martin Amis, Nicola Barker, Julian Barnes, Jonathan Coe, Howard Jacobson, Magnus Mills and Zadie Smith, this book suggests not only that much of the most interesting contemporary writing is funny and that there is a comic tendency in contemporary fiction, but also that this humour, this comic licence, allows writers of contemporary fiction to do peculiar and interesting things - things that are funny in the sense of odd or strange and that may in turn inspire a funny turn in readers. Marsh offers a series of original critical and theoretical frameworks for discussing questions of literary genre, style, affect and politics, demonstrating that comedy is an often neglected mode that plays a generative role in much of the most interesting contemporary writing, creating sites of rich political, stylistic, cognitive and ethical contestation whose analysis offers a new perspective on the present.
Download or read book A Concise Companion to Contemporary British Fiction written by James F. English and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Concise Companion to Contemporary British Fiction offers an authoritative overview of contemporary British fiction in its social, political, and economic contexts. Focuses on the fiction that has emerged since the late 1970s, roughly since the start of the Thatcher era. Comprises original essays from major scholars. Topics range from the rise and fall of the postcolonial novel to controversies over the celebrity author. The emphasis is on the whole fiction scene, from bookstores and prizes to the changing economics of film adaptation. Enables students to read contemporary works of British fiction with a much clearer sense of where they fit within British cultural life.
Download or read book Modern English Literature written by Edmund Gosse and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work attempts to present the evolution of English literature through succeeding generations and various threads of literary expression.
Download or read book The Representation of Masculinity in Contemporary British Fiction written by Holger Kiesow and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2007-01-20 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examination Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Göttingen (Englisches Seminar), language: English, abstract: From 1950 to 1999, the fiction genre of Ladlit presented British readers with a romantic, comic, popular male literature, which was regarded as a chance to examine male identity in contemporary Britain. But by the beginning of the 21st century one was seeking for a new story of masculine identity. In the meantime, the has been a focus on masculinity in language and gender studies, whereas the exclusive attention had formerly been upon femininity. The tradition of man being constituted in terms of universal, normative values has led to the phenomenon of 'invisible masculinity'. However, there has always been a discourse available to men which allows them to represent themselves as people or mankind. The text examines how the representation of masculinities has changed in society in the recent fifty years. Using different theories of gender studies, masculinities and the effects of socio-economical changes, the following novels will be discussed: Amis's Lucky Jim (1954), Sillitoe's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958), Hollinghurst's The Swimming-Pool Library (1988) and Hornby's About a Boy (1998).
Download or read book The Alchemy of Laughter written by G. Cavaliero and published by Springer. This book was released on 1999-11-02 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the only contemporary critical study to discuss the nature of comedy with exclusive reference to novels. It examines the comic styles of novelists from Fielding and Jane Austen to Waugh and Agnus Wilson, as well as less familiar writers such as Ronald Firbank and Sylvia Townsend Warner. Distinguishing between different kinds of humour, it shows how comedy works in practice under changing literary, social and environmental conditions, and is designed to interest academic and general readers equally.
Download or read book Present Laughter written by Malcolm Bradbury and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 1995 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sparkling anthology offers 29 of the best marriages of comedy and fiction. A deliciously varied collection of comic short stories, representing the cream of twentieth century humour.
Download or read book Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800 written by and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Comic Mode in English Literature written by Murray Roston and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-10-27 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales to Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary, this is a comprehensive guide to comedy in the English literary canon. Beginning with a critical exploration of historical and philosophical theories of humour, the book then supplies close-readings of a wide range of major texts, authors and genres from the Medieval period to the present. The Comic Mode in English Literature examines such texts as: "Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream" Pope's The Rape of the Lock Austen's Emma "Dickens" The Pickwick Papers Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest Amis's Lucky Jim Covering poetry, prose and drama, this comprehensive guide will be essential reading for students of comic writing, literary history and genre.
Download or read book Reader s Index and Guide written by and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Turn of a Century Essays on Victorian and Modern English Literature written by Bernard Bergonzi and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Bookman written by and published by . This book was released on 1912 with total page 700 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Between You and Me written by K. C. Councilor and published by . This book was released on 2019-06-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of comics about gender transition. Includes a dialogue between the author and Lynda Barry.
Download or read book A Confederacy of Dunces written by John Kennedy Toole and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize “A masterwork . . . the novel astonishes with its inventiveness . . . it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue.”—The New York Times Book Review A Confederacy of Dunces is an American comic masterpiece. John Kennedy Toole's hero, one Ignatius J. Reilly, is "huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gargantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter. His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures" (Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times).
Download or read book Book Review Digest written by and published by . This book was released on 1927 with total page 1098 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpts from and citations to reviews of more than 8,000 books each year, drawn from coverage of 109 publications. Book Review Digest provides citations to and excerpts of reviews of current juvenile and adult fiction and nonfiction in the English language. Reviews of the following types of books are excluded: government publications, textbooks, and technical books in the sciences and law. Reviews of books on science for the general reader, however, are included. The reviews originate in a group of selected periodicals in the humanities, social sciences, and general science published in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. - Publisher.
Download or read book The Contemporary English Novel written by Horst W. Drescher and published by [Frankfurt am Main] : Athenäum-Verlag. This book was released on 1973 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book I Know This Much Is True written by Wally Lamb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-03 with total page 884 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.
