Comic Sense

Thomas Pughe

ISBN 10: 3764350237 / ISBN 13: 9783764350239

Published by Birkhäuser Basel, Birkhäuser Basel Apr 1994, 1994

About this Item

This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The idea for this study came to me in the course of my reading of innova tive US-American! fiction of the last three decades. I observed that much of it is cast in the comic mode - or, more precisely, that there seems to be in contemporary fiction an affinity between 'innovation' and 'the comic' and that this affinity, furthermore, appears to be characteristic of postmo dernism. It is obvious, at the same time, that comic has become an elusive and, more often than not, a disputable category. Frederick Karl, in his sur vey of American Fictions 1940-1980, maintains, for instance, that much comic writing consists in ridicule that lacks deeper intellectual and cul tural roots. 'Wit and mockery,' he notes, 'by themselves have little lasting value. Even in the best of such fiction, Gravity's Rainbow, one is made aware of attenuated skits stiched onto previous segments, rather than baked in by a defined point of view. ' (Karl: 27) Such assessments of course challenge my view that the comic is in significant ways connected with what is innovative in postmodernist US-American fiction. Yet the term comic -or related terms like humour, parody, irony and so fort- is regularly and heavily employed in discussions or reviews of con temporary fiction. 212 pp. Englisch.

Seller Inventory # 9783764350239

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Comic Sense
• Publisher: Birkhäuser Basel, Birkhäuser Basel Apr 1994
• Publication Date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3764350237
• ISBN 13: 9783764350239
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 244W x 170H x 12D millimeters 244 millimeters width by 170 millimeters height by 12 millimeters depth
• Weight: 375 grams

About this title

Synopsis

The idea for this study came to me in the course of my reading of innova­ tive US-American! fiction of the last three decades. I observed that much of it is cast in the comic mode - or, more precisely, that there seems to be in contemporary fiction an affinity between 'innovation' and 'the comic' and that this affinity, furthermore, appears to be characteristic of postmo­ dernism. It is obvious, at the same time, that comic has become an elusive and, more often than not, a disputable category. Frederick Karl, in his sur­ vey of American Fictions 1940-1980, maintains, for instance, that much comic writing consists in ridicule that lacks deeper intellectual and cul­ tural roots. "Wit and mockery," he notes, "by themselves have little lasting value. Even in the best of such fiction, Gravity's Rainbow, one is made aware of attenuated skits stiched onto previous segments, rather than baked in by a defined point of view. " (Karl: 27) Such assessments of course challenge my view that the comic is in significant ways connected with what is innovative in postmodernist US-American fiction. Yet the term comic -or related terms like humour, parody, irony and so fort- is regularly and heavily employed in discussions or reviews of con­ temporary fiction.

Synopsis

This text aims to increase the reader's understanding of the comic in the work of three major contemporary North American writers. It tries, on the one hand, to do justice to the specificity of the "oeuvre" of each of the writers it deals with and, on the other, to come to grips with the comic as a theoretical problem of the criticism of much contemporary fiction. The term "comic sense" implies both a quality of the fiction discusssed in this book and a particular way of reading this fiction. Pughe concentrates mainly on the texts of his three authors: Robert Coover's "A Night at the Movies" and "The Public Burning", Stanley Elkin's "The Dick Gibson Show", "The Franchiser" and "The Magic Kingdom" and Philip Roth's Zuckerman series. His readings are based on a reconsideration of traditional and modern theories of the comic and show that the literary significance of the texts discussed here is closely intertwined with the authors' - and their readers' - comic sense.