How to Reread a Novel

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How to Reread a Novel is the first part of a projected two-volume work that aims to identify, categorize, and interpret some of the resources of narration. Drawing on classical philology, the rhetorical tradition, and more recent approaches to narratology, Matthew Clark explores reading fiction as a complex experience of perception, cognition, and emotion, in which the writer of a narrative attempts to create and control the experience of the reader through the deployment of the resources of narration. Texts examined range from the Iliad and the Odyssey to contemporary literature, as Clark investigates fundamental elements of the art of the novel. Chapter One begins by showing that novels are not simply transcriptions of physical reality and that the language of the novel is not a transparent window on the outside world. Clark argues that realism is far from being the universal goal of novelists, and when it does occur it is a carefully contrived illusion. Chapters Two and Three consider the narrative situation-from the side of the author and from the side of the reader-and demonstrate some of the ways novelists can use the narrative situation for thematic ends. Chapters Four through Six concentrate on style, using the tools provided by the rhetorical tradition. Chapter Four provides a general overview of some frequently used rhetorical schemes and figures, while Chapter Five examines the meaning or function of schemes used by Charles Dickens, Anne Brontèe, and Toni Morrison. Chapter Six discusses simile and metaphor in Homer, Raymond Chandler, and Henry James. By identifying and interpreting the resources of narration, with a critical eye that balances theoretical discussion with the practical task of understanding specific novels, How to Reread a Novel explicates the methodologies of narrative storytelling and the effects they achieve as they create beauty and meaning"--