This article offers an overview of the literary career of Paul Auster, a contemporary American writer whose prolific output commands a remarkably loyal following. Furthermore, it outlines the reasons for the polarized critical reception met by his novels, which continue to attract – by Auster’s own admission –‘the best reviews and the worst reviews of any writer I know’ (Burns, Carole. The Washington Post 16 Dec., 2003). Famous for his concern with the plight of the artist, and for his meditations on the power and the limitations of language, Auster has been typically analysed from a (largely a‐political) postmodern perspective. This article will therefore also consider the shift in recent Auster scholarship towards a re‐evaluation of the political charge of his fiction, especially in the light of his response to George W. Bush’s ‘war on terror’ in the wake of 9/11.
So if someone asks me, as a Caribbean person: ''Where is your history?'' I would say: ''It is out there, in that cloud, that sky, the water moving.'' And if the questioner says: ''There's nothing there,'' I would say: ''Well, that's what I think history is. There's nothing there.'' The sea is history. 1
Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the first novel to be published simultaneously for the UK adult and children's market, exemplifies the phenomenon of crossover literature better perhaps than the ''Harry Potter'' series, whose appeal to a dual-aged audience had caught the publishing industry by surprise. This article identifies Haddon's engagement with the genre of detective fiction as one of the reasons for the novel's crossover success: while the mystery plot offers a compelling narrative ''hook'' for children and adults alike, the postmodern twists on the detective formula open up deeper levels of satisfaction, without alienating the less experienced members of the audience. Analysed within the context of contemporary crime fiction, Curious Incident also appears to be tapping into a relatively recent literary trend that sees detective novels focusing on young characters as victims, witnesses and even perpetrators of crimes-itself a reflection of our changing attitudes towards the Romantic view of childhood as an age of innocence.Keywords Mark Haddon Á Crossover novels Á Detective fiction Á Postmodern writing Stefania Ciocia is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Literatures in English at Canterbury Christ Church University, where she has been teaching courses on Children's Literature since 2005. Her main research interests lie broadly in the areas of postmodernism and postcolonialism: she has published articles on Sarah Waters, Derek Walcott and Caryl Phillips, and is currently completing a monograph on Tim O'Brien and Vietnam War writing. She has also written on Geraldine McCaughrean's Peter Pan in Scarlet and its engagement with J. M. Barrie's original creation. Within the field of Children's Literature, she is particularly interested in contemporary revisitations of classic texts and in crossover fiction.
Vietnam and Beyond: Tim OBrien and the Power of Storytelling is a comprehensive, in-depth study of one of the most thought-provoking writers of the Vietnam war generation. This volume breaks away from previous readings of OBriens development as a trauma artist and an outspoken chronicler of the American involvement in Vietnam: its thematic, rather than chronological, approach contextualizes OBriens work beyond the confines of war literature. The necessary exploration of OBriens recurrent engagement with the conflict in Vietnam leads to a thorough discussion of the writers revision of key American (and western) ideas and concerns: the association between courage, heroism and masculinity, the celebration of the pioneering spirit in the frontier narrative, the sense of superiority in the encounter with foreign civilizations, the fraught relationship between power and truth, or reality and imagination, and the attempt and the right to speak about unspeakable events. All these themes, as Ciocia illustrates, highlight OBriens compelling preoccupation with the role and the ethical responsibility of the storyteller. With his clear privileging of story-truth over happening-truth, OBrien makes a bold, serious investment in the power of fiction, as testified by his formal experimentations, metanarrative reflections and sustained meditations on matters such as individual agency, moral accountability and authenticity. Approached from this fresh perspective, OBrien emerges as a figure deserving to find a wider audience and demanding renewed scholarly attention for his remarkable achievements as a contemporary mythographer, an acute observer of the human condition and a sharp critic of American culture.
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