The Mind of the Novel: Reflexive Fiction and the IneffableFrom Moby-Dick to The Unnamable, from A Tale of a Tub to The Book of Questions, Bruce Kawin explores the nature of self-conscious fiction and compares its structure to that of human consciousness. Focusing on texts that confront their own limits by trying to name the unnamable, the ineffable self, Kawin draws on methods from literary criticism to systems theory to explain a variety of first-person works that "dance around the ungraspable subject." |
Contents
CHAPTER | 5 |
Heart of Darkness | 52 |
Watt Doctor Faustus and Pale Fire | 62 |
CHAPTER FOUR | 81 |
Frames under Pressure | 127 |
Wuthering Heights and Absalom Absalom | 154 |
CHAPTER FIVE | 211 |
NOTES | 325 |
| 357 | |
| 371 | |
Common terms and phrases
Absalom Addie Ahab Ahab's aspects attempt awareness basic Beckett becomes Book of Questions Borges Carlos Carlos Castaneda Castaneda chapter characters confront consciousness context Darl Derrida describe don Juan dream Edmond Jabès energy existence experience expression Faulkner feels feminist fiction Film first-person narration Gatsby Gertrude Stein Golden Notebook Gravity's Rainbow Heart of Darkness Heathcliff Heidegger horror human Ibid identity imagine ineffable insight intuition Ishmael Jabès King in Yellow Kurtz language Lay Dying limits literature logical madness manifest Marlow means metaphysical mind Moby-Dick mystery nagual narrative nature ness novel paradox person perspective present Press problem Proust Pynchon Quentin R. D. Laing reader reality reflexive relation sciousness secondary first-person sense signified silence simply speak Stein story structure Sutpen systemic self-consciousness tell textual thing timeless tion tonal Tractatus trans transcend transcendental Univ Unnamable verbal Watt whale whole Wittgenstein words writing Wuthering Heights York