Novel Arguments: Reading Innovative American Fiction (Cambridge Studies in American Literature & Culture): 91 (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture, Series Number 91) - Hardcover

Walsh, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521471451 ISBN 13: 9780521471459

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1995

Synopsis

Novel Arguments argues that innovative fiction - by which is meant writing that has been variously labelled as postmodern, metafictional, experimental - extends our ways of thinking about the world, rejecting the critical consensus that, under the rubrics of postmodernism and metafiction, homogenises this fiction as autonomous and self-absorbed. Play, self-consciousness and immanence - supposed symptoms of innovative fiction's autonomy - are here reconsidered as integral to its means of engagement. The 1995 book advances a concept of the 'argument' of fiction as a construct wedding structure and content into a highly evolved and expressive form. The argument, not the content, is established as the site of a fiction's 'aboutness' and thus the usual emphasis upon the generalities of innovative form is replaced by a concern for the logic of specific literary effects. Walsh deftly argues for an understanding of fictional cognition at the theoretical level and in an act of unmatched critical creativity, discards altogether the flattening totalities of received postmodern formulations.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Novel arguments argues that innovative fiction - by which is meant writing that has been variously labeled postmodern, metafictional, experimental - extends our ways of thinking about the world, and rejects the critical consensus that, under the rubrics of postmodernism and metafiction, homogenizes this fiction as autonomous and self-absorbed. Play, self-consciousness, and immanence - supposed symptoms of innovative fiction's autonomy - are here reconsidered as integral to its means of engagement. The book advances a concept of the "argument" of fiction as a construct wedding structure and content into a highly evolved and expressive experimental form. Close readings of five important innovative novels by Donald Barthelme, Ishmael Reed, Robert Coover, Walter Abish, and Kathy Acker show how they articulate matters of substance, social engagement, and ideological currency by virtue of the act of innovation. Walsh deftly argues for a new understanding of fictional cognition at the theoretical level, and, in an act of great critical creativity, discards altogether the flattening totalities of received postmodern formulations.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521471451
• ISBN 13: 9780521471459
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 200