The powers of the false : reading, writing, thinking beyond truth and fiction / Doro Wiese.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wiese, Doro, author.

Series:

FlashPoints (Evanston, Ill.)

Flashpoints

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Foer, Jonathan Safran, 1977- Everything is illuminated.

Foer, Jonathan Safran.

Flanagan, Richard, 1961- Gould's book of fish.

Flanagan, Richard.

Powers, Richard, 1957-. Time of our singing.

Powers, Richard.

Foer, Jonathan Safran, 1977---Criticism and interpretation.

Flanagan, Richard, 1961---Criticism and interpretation.

Powers, Richard, 1957---Criticism and interpretation.

Powers, Richard, 1957-.

Flanagan, Richard, 1961-.

Foer, Jonathan Safran, 1977-.

American fiction--21st century--History and criticism.

American fiction.

English fiction--21st century--History and criticism.

English fiction.

History in literature.

Truthfulness and falsehood in literature.

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

xii, 263 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2014.

Summary:

Can literature make it possible to represent histories that are otherwise ineffable? Making use of the Deleuzian concept of "the powers of the false," Doro Wiese offers readings of three novels that deal with the Shoah, with colonialism, and with racialized identities. She argues that Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated, Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish, and Richard Powers's The Time of Our Singing are novels in which a space for unvoiced, silent, or silenced difference is created. Seen through the lens of Deleuze and his collaborators' philosophy, literature is a means for mediating knowledge and affects about historical events. Going beyond any simple dichotomy between true and untrue accounts of what "really" happened in the past, literature's powers of the false incite readers to long for a narrative space in which painful or shameful stories can be included. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction

The truth of narration and the powers of the false

Accepting complicated legacies by being once removed from the world : Everything is illuminated (Foer 2002)

"He looked for truth in facts and not in stories" : crimes of historiography and forces of fabulation in Richard Flanagan's Gould's book of fish (2003)

Making time, undoing race: Richard Powers' The time of our singing (2003)

Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-257) and index.

ISBN:

9780810130043

0810130041

OCLC:

870439187