278 Pages
by Routledge

278 Pages
by Routledge

288 Pages
by Routledge

In this trenchant and lively study Brian McHale undertakes to construct a version of postmodernist fiction which encompasses forms as wide-ranging as North American metafiction, Latin American magic realism, the French New New Novel, concrete prose and science fiction. Considering a variety of theoretical approaches including those of Ingarden, Eco, Dolezel, Pavel, and Hrushovski, McHale shows... Read more
Part 1: Preliminaries  1. From modernist to postmodernist fiction: change of dominant  2. Some ontologies of fiction  Part 2: Worlds  3. In the Zone  4. Worlds in collusion  5. A world next door  6. Real, compared to what?  Part 3: Construction  7. Worlds under erasure  8. Chinese-box worlds  Part 5. Words  9. Tropological worlds  10. Styled worlds  11. Worlds of discourse  Part 5: Groundings  12. Worlds on paper  13. Authors: dead and posthumous  14. Love and death in the post-modernist novel

Biography

Brian McHale is Humanities Distinguished Professor at The Ohio State University, USA.

"This is one of the most lively and lucid studies of contemporary fiction around. Whether or not you agree with his provocative definition of the postmodern, McHale's argument is always engaging, bold and forceful." Linda Hutcheon

"Not only does the critical jargon not get in the way of his thesis, but McHale even uses examples you've heard of ... A useful and comprehensive examination of the nature of The Beast." City Limits

"McHale ... has written a brilliant, forceful and lucid defence of his own view." John Fletcher, Journal of European Studies