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Hysterical Realism
Hysterical realism is a term coined in 2000 by English critic James Wood (critic), James Wood to describe what he sees as a literary genre typified by a strong contrast between elaborately absurd prose, plotting, or characterization, on the one hand, and careful, detailed investigations of real, specific social phenomena on the other. It is also known as recherché postmodernism. History Wood introduced the term in an essay on Zadie Smith's ''White Teeth'', which appeared in the July 24, 2000 issue of ''The New Republic''. Wood uses the term pejoratively to denote the contemporary conception of the "big, ambitious novel" that pursues "vitality at all costs" and consequently "knows a thousand things but does not know a single human being." He decried the genre as an attempt to "turn fiction into social theory," and an attempt to tell readers "how the world works rather than how somebody felt about something." Wood points to Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon as the forefathers of the g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Wood (critic)
James Douglas Graham Wood (born 1 November 1965) is an English literary critic, essayist and novelist. Wood was ''The Guardian''s chief literary critic between 1992 and 1995. He was a senior editor at ''The New Republic'' between 1995 and 2007. , he is Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard University and a staff writer at ''The New Yorker'' magazine. Early life and education James Wood was born in Durham, England, to Dennis William Wood (born 1928), a Dagenham-born minister and professor of zoology at Durham University, and Sheila Graham Wood, née Lillia, a schoolteacher from Scotland. Wood was raised in Durham in an evangelical wing of the Church of England, an environment he describes as austere and serious. He was educated at Durham Chorister School and Eton College, both on music scholarships. He read English Literature at Jesus College, Cambridge, where in 1988 he graduated with a First. Career Writing After Cambridge, Wood "holed up in London in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midnight's Children
''Midnight's Children'' is a 1981 novel by Indian-British writer Salman Rushdie, published by Jonathan Cape with cover design by Bill Botten, about India's transition from British colonial rule to independence and partition. It is a postcolonial, postmodern and magical realist story told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, set in the context of historical events. The style of preserving history with fictional accounts is self-reflexive. ''Midnight's Children'' sold over one million copies in the UK alone and won the Booker Prize and James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981.Mullan, John.Salman Rushdie on the writing of Midnight's Children" ''The Guardian'', 26 July 2008. It was awarded the "Booker of Bookers" Prize and the best all-time prize winners in 1993 and 2008 to celebrate the Booker Prize 25th and 40th anniversary. In 2003 the novel appeared at number 100 on the BBC's The Big Read poll which determined the UK's "best-loved novels" of all time. Background and plo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Theory
Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, moral philosophy, social prophecy, and interdisciplinary themes relevant to how people interpret meaning. In the humanities in modern academia, the latter style of literary scholarship is an offshoot of post-structuralism. Searle, John. (1990)"The Storm Over the University" ''The New York Review of Books'', December 6, 1990. Consequently, the word ''theory'' became an umbrella term for scholarly approaches to reading texts, some of which are informed by strands of semiotics, cultural studies, philosophy of language, and continental philosophy. History The practice of literary theory became a profession in the 20th century, but it has historical roots that run as far back as ancient Greece (Aristotle's ''Poetics'' is an often cited early e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Realism
Literary realism is a literary genre, part of the broader realism in arts, that attempts to represent subject-matter truthfully, avoiding speculative fiction and supernatural elements. It originated with the realist art movement that began with mid- nineteenth-century French literature (Stendhal) and Russian literature (Alexander Pushkin). Literary realism attempts to represent familiar things as they are. Realist authors chose to depict everyday and banal activities and experiences. Background Broadly defined as "the representation of reality", realism in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, as well as implausible, exotic and supernatural elements. Realism has been prevalent in the arts at many periods, and is in large part a matter of technique and training, and the avoidance of stylization. In the visual arts, illusionistic realism is the accurate depiction of lifeforms, perspective, and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genre Studies
Genre studies is an academic subject which studies genre theory as a branch of general critical theory in several different fields, including art, literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition studies. Literary genre studies is a structuralist approach to the study of genre and genre theory in literary theory, film theory, and other cultural theories. The study of a genre in this way examines the structural elements that combine in the telling of a story and finds patterns in collections of stories. When these elements (or semiotic codes) begin to carry inherent information, a genre emerges. Linguistic genre studies can be roughly divided into two schools, Systemic Functional Linguistics or "SFL", and English for Specific Purposes or "ESP." SFL scholars believe that language structure is an integral part of a text's social context and function. SFL scholars often conduct research that focuses on genres' usefulness in pedagogy. ESP also examines the pedagogical i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Realism
American Realism was a style in art, music and literature that depicted contemporary social realities and the lives and everyday activities of ordinary people. The movement began in literature in the mid-19th century, and became an important tendency in visual art in the early 20th century. Whether a cultural portrayal or a scenic view of downtown New York City, American realist works attempted to define what was real. In the U.S. at the beginning of the 20th century a new generation of painters, writers and journalists were coming of age. Many of the painters felt the influence of older U.S. artists such as Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam, J. Alden Weir, Thomas Pollock Anshutz, and William Merritt Chase. However they were interested in creating new and more urbane works that reflected city life and a population that was more urban than rural in the U.S. as it entered the new century. America in the early 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine
''You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine'' is the 2015 debut novel by Alexandra Kleeman. It was Kleeman's first novel, and was published by HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News .... It was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, shortlisted for the NBCC Leonard Prize, and won the 2016 Bard Fiction Prize. Plot summary The novel concerns a woman, who is unnamed, and her roommate, B, and boyfriend, C. References 2015 American novels HarperCollins books 2015 debut novels {{2010s-novel-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middlesex (novel)
''Middlesex'' is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides published in 2002. The book is a bestseller, with more than four million copies sold since its publication. Its characters and events are loosely based on aspects of Eugenides' life and observations of his Greek heritage. It is not an autobiography; unlike the protagonist, Eugenides is not intersex. The author decided to write ''Middlesex'' after reading the 1980 memoir ''Herculine Barbin'' and finding himself dissatisfied with its discussion of intersex anatomy and emotions. Primarily a coming-of-age story (''Bildungsroman'') and family saga, the 21st century gender novel chronicles the effect of a mutated gene on three generations of a Greek family, causing momentous changes in the protagonist's life. According to scholars, the novel's main themes are nature versus nurture, rebirth, and the differing experiences of what society constructs as polar opposites—such as those found between men and women ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Corrections
''The Corrections'' is a 2001 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It revolves around the troubles of an elderly Midwestern couple and their three adult children, tracing their lives from the mid-20th century to "one last Christmas" together near the turn of the millennium. The novel was awarded the National Book Award in 2001 and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2002. ''The Corrections'' was published to wide acclaim from literary critics for its characterization and prose. While the novel's release preceded the September 11 terrorist attacks by ten days, many have interpreted ''The Corrections'' as having prescient insight into the major concerns and general mood of post-9/11 American life, and it has been listed in multiple publications as one of the greatest novels of the 21st century. Plot summary The novel shifts back and forth through the late 20th century, intermittently following spouses Alfred and Enid Lambert as they raise their children Gary, Chip, and De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Las Películas De Mi Vida
''Las películas de mi vida'' (translated as ''The Movies of My Life: A Novel'') is a 2002 semi-autobiographical novel by Chilean writer Alberto Fuguet. The novel has received a significant amount of critical attention. Plot summary The protagonist of the novel recounts his life story, which oscillates between Chile and California. He begins by describing his early years spent in California and uses the movies he watched during that time to paint a picture of his life. However, he is forced to abruptly return to Chile during his early teens, where he must now live under the regime of Augusto Pinochet, which proves to be a major cultural shock Culture shock is an experience a person may have when one moves to a cultural environment which is different from one's own; it is also the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life due to immigration ... for him. External linksPop Matters review [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alberto Fuguet
Alberto Felipe Fuguet de Goyeneche (; born 7 March 1963) is a Chilean author, journalist, film critic and film director who rose to critical prominence in the 1990s as part of the movement known as the New Chilean Narrative. Although he was born in Santiago, he spent his first 13 years of life in Encino, California. He was among the fifty Latin American leaders selected by ''Time'' magazine and CNN in 1999, and he appeared on the front page of ''Newsweek'' magazine in 2002. Biography Fuguet was born in Santiago, Chile, but his family moved to Encino, California, where he lived until age 13. He is a graduate of the University of Chile's School of Journalism. In 1999 ''Time'' called Fuguet one of the 50 most important Latin Americans for the next millennium. In 2003, he was featured on the cover of the international edition of ''Newsweek'' magazine to represent a new generation of writers. Fuguet currently heads the program in contemporary audiovisual culture at the Univer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius
''A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'' is a memoir by Dave Eggers released in 2000. It chronicles his stewardship of his younger brother Christopher "Toph" Eggers following the cancer-related deaths of his parents. The book was a commercial and critical success, reaching number one on ''The New York Times'' bestseller list and being nominated as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. ''Time'' magazine and several newspapers dubbed it "The Best Book of the Year". Critics praised the book for its wild, vibrant prose, and it was described as "big, daring nd manic-depressive" by ''The New York Times.'' The book was chosen as the 12th best book of the decade by ''The Times''. Important characters *Heidi McSweeney Eggers – Eggers's mother, a woman who has to deal with raising her children while suffering from stomach cancer. She dies in January 1992, relatively early in the book. *John K. Eggers – Eggers's father was a heavy smoker and drink ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
