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A Smuggler's Bible
''A Smuggler's Bible'' is Joseph McElroy's first novel. David Brooke—who talks of himself in a split-personality manner—narrates a framing tale that consists of him "smuggling" his essence into eight autobiographical manuscripts, although their connection with Brooke is not always clear. Brooke seems to deteriorate, while his fictions become more real. In ordinary English, a " smuggler's bible" refers to a book with a cutout in the body of the pages, suitable for hiding small items when the covers are closed. Plot summary The novel consists of a frame story (summarized here indented), intercut with eight chapters that are the eight manuscripts mentioned in the frame story. :The frame story is told from what seems to be a split-personality part of a consciousness, although it may simply be an extended metaphor for the mind of an author, keeping distinct his personal life and creative mental life: :David is on a cruise ship heading to London. He has eight manu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph McElroy
Joseph Prince McElroy (born August 21, 1930) is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. He is noted for his long postmodern novels such as ''Women and Men''. Personal background McElroy was born on August 21, 1930, in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Brooklyn Heights. He graduated from Poly Prep Country Day School in 1947 and was given an Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award in 2007 from the school's Board of Governors. He graduated from Williams College in 1951. The following year, McElroy earned a master's degree from Columbia University. He served in the Coast Guard from 1952 to 1954, and then returned to Columbia to complete his Ph.D. in 1961.''World Authors 1975–1980 In 1961, McElroy married Joan Leftwich, of London, in London. She is the daughter of Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews; her father, Joseph Leftwich, was a translator and anthologizer of Yiddish poetry. The McElroys' only child, Hanna, was born in 1967. McElroy assisted with the bir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Under The Volcano
''Under the Volcano'' is a novel by English writer Malcolm Lowry (1909–1957) published in 1947. The novel tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British consul in the Mexican city of Quauhnahuac, on the Day of the Dead in November 1939. The book takes its name from the two volcanoes, Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, that overshadow Quauhnahuac and the characters. ''Under the Volcano'' was Lowry's second and last complete novel. The novel was adapted for radio on ''Studio One'' in 1947 but had gone out of print by the time Lowry died in 1957. Its popularity restored, in 1984 it served as the basis of a film of the same name. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked ''Under the Volcano'' at number 11 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It was included in Modern Library's 100 Best English-Language Novels, Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, Time's All-Time 100 Novels, and Anthony Burgess' Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English Sin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels By Joseph McElroy
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the historic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metafictional Novels
Metafiction is a form of fiction which emphasises its own narrative structure in a way that continually reminds the audience that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and story-telling, and works of metafiction directly or indirectly draw attention to their status as artifacts. Metafiction is frequently used as a form of parody or a tool to undermine literary conventions and explore the relationship between literature and reality, life, and art. Although metafiction is most commonly associated with postmodern literature that developed in the mid-20th century, its use can be traced back to much earlier works of fiction, such as '' The Canterbury Tales'' ( Geoffrey Chaucer, 1387), ''Don Quixote'' (Miguel de Cervantes, 1605), ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' (Laurence Sterne, 1759), and '' Vanity Fair'' (William Makepeace Thackeray, 1847). Metafiction became particularly prominent in the 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels About Writers
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-reflexive Books
Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence, idea or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding. In philosophy, it also refers to the ability of a subject to speak of or refer to itself, that is, to have the kind of thought expressed by the first person nominative singular pronoun "I" in English. Self-reference is studied and has applications in mathematics, philosophy, computer programming, second-order cybernetics, and linguistics, as well as in humor. Self-referential statements are sometimes paradoxical, and can also be considered recursive. In logic, mathematics and computing In classical philosophy, paradoxes were created by self-referential concepts such as the omnipotence paradox of asking if it was possible for a being to exist so powerful that it could create a stone that it could not lift. The Epimenides paradox, 'All Cretans ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1966 American Novels
Events January * January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko. * January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo is deposed by a military coup in the Republic of Upper Volta (modern-day Burkina Faso). * January 10 ** Pakistani–Indian peace negotiations end successfully with the signing of the Tashkent Declaration, a day before the sudden death of Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. ** The House of Representatives of the US state of Georgia refuses to allow African-American representative Julian Bond to take his seat, because of his anti-war stance. ** A Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference convenes in Lagos, Nigeria, primarily to discuss Rhodesia. * January 12 – United States President Lyndon Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended. * January 15 – 1966 Nigerian coup d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom LeClair
Thomas LeClair (born 1944) is a writer, literary critic, and was the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati until 2009. He has been a regular book reviewer for the ''New York Times Book Review'', the ''Washington Post Book World'', the ''Nation'', the '' Barnes & Noble Review'', and the ''Daily Beast''. Early life Tom LeClair grew up in Vermont, got his AB from Boston College, his MA from the University of Vermont, and his PhD from Duke University. He taught for two years at Norwich College before joining the faculty at the University of Cincinnati in 1970. Literary career In 1979, LeClair secured the first interview with Don Delillo, in Athens.DePietro, Thomas (ed.) ''Conversations with Don DeLillo''; the interview was originally published in ''Contemporary Literature'', 23, 1, pp 19-31. LeClair taught at the University of Athens in 1981-82, and since then regularly spent his summers and sabbaticals in Greece. His works of criticism include ''In t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Gaddis
William Thomas Gaddis, Jr. (December 29, 1922 – December 16, 1998) was an American novelist. The first and longest of his five novels, '' The Recognitions'', was named one of TIME magazine's 100 best novels from 1923 to 2005 and two others, '' J R'' and '' A Frolic of His Own'', won the annual U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. National Book Foundation: Awards"National Book Award Winners: 1950–2009" Retrieved March 28, 2012. A collection of his essays was published posthumously as ''The Rush for Second Place'' (2002). ''The Letters of William Gaddis'' was published by Dalkey Archive Press in February 2013. A MacArthur Fellow, Gaddis is widely considered one of the first and most important American postmodern writers."William Gaddis: A Portfolio," ''Conjunctions'' 41 (2003), 373–415. Life and career Gaddis was born in New York City to William Thomas Gaddis, who worked "on Wall Street and in politics", and Edith (Charles) Gaddis, who worked her way up from bein ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Howard
Richard Joseph Howard (October 13, 1929 – March 31, 2022; adopted as Richard Joseph Orwitz) was an American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was a graduate of Columbia University, where he studied under Mark Van Doren,"Mark Van Doren", ''Columbia 250'' – Colombian Ahead of Their Times . and where he was an emeritus professor. He lived in . Life After reading French letter ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Recognitions
''The Recognitions'' is the 1955 debut novel of US author William Gaddis. The novel was initially poorly received by critics. After Gaddis won a National Book Award in 1975 for his second novel, ''J R'', his first work gradually received new and belated recognition as a masterpiece of American literature. In 2005, ''Time'' included ''The Recognitions'' in its list of "100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005". Plot The story loosely follows the life of Wyatt Gwyon, son of a Calvinist minister from rural New England; his mother dies in Spain. He plans to follow his father into the ministry. But he is inspired to become a painter by '' The Seven Deadly Sins'', Hieronymous Bosch's noted painting which his father owned. Gwyon leaves New England and travels to Europe to study painting. Discouraged by a corrupt critic and frustrated with his career, he moves to New York City. He meets Recktall Brown, a capitalistic collector and dealer of art, who makes a Faustian deal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic ( Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
