Making Sense: Sense Perception in the British Novel of the 1980s and 1990sRodopi, 2005 - 243 páginas Fiction is fascinating. All it provides us with is black letters on white pages, yet while we read we do not have the impression that we are merely perceiving abstract characters. Instead, we see the protagonists before our inner eye and hear their voices. Descriptions of sumptuous meals make our mouths water, we feel physically repelled by depictions of violence or are aroused by the erotic details of sexual conquests. We submerge ourselves in the fictional world that no longer stays on the paper but comes to life in our imagination. Reading turns into an out-of-the-body experience or, rather, an in-another-body experience, for we perceive the portrayed world not only through the protagonist's eyes but also through his ears, nose, tongue, and skin. In other words, we move through the literary text as if through a virtual reality. How does literature achieve this trick? How does it turn mere letters into vividly experienced worlds? This study argues that techniques of sensuous writing contribute decisively to bringing the text to life in the reader's imagination. In detailed interpretations of British novels of the 1980s and 1990s by writers such as John Berger, John Banville, Salman Rushdie, Jeanette Winterson, or J. M. Coetzee, it uncovers literary strategies for turning the sensuous experience into words and for conveying it to the reader, demonstrating how we make sense in, and of, literature. Both readers interested in the contemporary novel and in the sensuousness of the reading experience will profit from this innovative study that not only analyses the interest of contemporary authors in the senses but also pin-points literary entry points for the sensuous force of reading. |
Contenido
| 7 | |
The visual in the novel | 41 |
The auditory in the novel | 50 |
32 | 60 |
48 | 68 |
fictive orality and the novel | 84 |
The olfactory in the novel | 104 |
The gustatory in the novel | 149 |
The tactile in the novel | 162 |
sensuousness and the contemporary novel | 191 |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Making Sense: Sense Perception in the British Novel of the 1980s and 1990s Ralf Hertel Vista previa limitada - 2021 |
Términos y frases comunes
A. S. Byatt act of reading appropriate Athena attempt auditory Banville Banville's becomes bodily body Book of Evidence Byatt characters colour connotations contemporary novel create crucial culinary cultural demonstrates described eating ekphrasis emotional employs English patient evoke eyes feeling fictional world Flesh and Blood frequently gustatory gustatory experience hand identity imagination instance John Banville John Berger language linked literary literature lives London lover markers meaning merely metafictional metaphor Midnight's Children mirrors Moor's Last Sigh narrative narrator narrator's Ninon's novel of voices numbers refer object odours olfaction olfactory painting Passion Peggi perceive perfume physical postmodern protagonists reader reading process reality representation Roberts Roberts's Rushdie Rushdie's Salman Rushdie Sceats seems sense perception sensuous sexual skin smell speak story strategies structure style tactile sensations taste tell touch Trainspotting Trans trilogy Tsobanakos turns ultimately Venice verbal Villanelle visual wedding words writing the senses
Pasajes populares
Página 22 - The fact that completely different readers can be differently affected by the "reality" of a particular text is ample evidence of the degree to which literary texts transform reading into a creative process that is far above mere perception of what is written. The literary text activates our own faculties, enabling us to recreate the world it presents.
Página 21 - The phenomenological theory of art lays full stress on the idea that, in considering a literary work, one must take into account not only the actual text but also, and in equal measure, the actions involved in responding to that text.