Structuring the Void: The Struggle for Subject in Contemporary American Fiction

Jerome Klinkowitz

Structuring the Void: The Struggle for Subject in Contemporary American Fiction
Format
Hardback
Publisher
Duke University Press
Country
United States
Published
7 February 1992
Pages
192
ISBN
9780822312055

Structuring the Void: The Struggle for Subject in Contemporary American Fiction

Jerome Klinkowitz

If, as the literary theorists of postmodernism contend, content does not exist, then how can fiction continue to be written? Jerome Klinkowitz, himself a veteran practitioner and theorist of fiction, addresses this question in Structuring the Void, an account of what today’s novelists and short story writers do when they produce a fictive work. Klinkowitz’s focus is on the way in which writers have turned this lack of content itself into subject matter, and, by thus structuring the void, have created a new form of fiction. Among the writers Klinkowitz discusses are Richard Brautigan, Kurt Vonnegut, Max Apple, Saul Bellow, Erica Jong, Susan Quist, Gerald Rosen, Rob Swigart, and Grace Paley. He shows how, in the absence of subject matter, these writers persist in the act of structuring-by organizing autobiography as a narrative device, ritualizing national history and popular culture, or formalizing a comic response to a new imaginative state, the state of California. Klinkowitz also considers subjects such as gender and war, which, though they cannot be represented, nevertheless exercise contraints on a writer’s intention to structure. What emerges from Klinkowitz’s analysis is a clear sense of what today’s fiction-and fiction writing-is about. As such, Structuring the Void will prove invaluable to anyone with an interest in contemporary literature.

This item is not currently in-stock. It can be ordered online and is expected to ship in approx 4 weeks

Our stock data is updated periodically, and availability may change throughout the day for in-demand items. Please call the relevant shop for the most current stock information. Prices are subject to change without notice.

Sign in or become a Readings Member to add this title to a wishlist.