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Tours Of The Black Clock
''Tours of the Black Clock'' is the third novel by Steve Erickson, published in 1989. It has been translated into French language, French, Spanish language, Spanish, Dutch language, Dutch and Japanese language, Japanese among other languages. The narrative concerns itself with two of the most influential figures of the 20th century, as Adolf Hitler appears as an important character, and allusions are made to Albert Einstein and the theory of relativity. The novel was cited as one of the year's best by the Village Voice and the New York Times Book Review and is included on Larry McCaffery's list of the 20th Century’s Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction. Plot summary The novel follows a seemingly relativistic plot, where time and space disappear as absolutes. The first part concerns Marc, the son of a woman named Dania. He becomes a boatman, ferrying tourists from the mainland to Davenhall, the small island in the river where he grew up. Marc leaves town the nig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Erickson
Stephen Michael Erickson is an American novelist. The author of influential works such as '' Days Between Stations'', '' Tours of the Black Clock'' and '' Zeroville'', he is the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters award, the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Biography Steve Erickson was born and raised in Los Angeles. For many years his mother, a former actress, ran a small theatre in L.A. His father, who died in 1990, was a photographer. Erickson had a pronounced stutter as a child when teachers believed he couldn't read. This motif occasionally has recurred in novels such as '' Amnesiascope.'' At UCLA Erickson studied literature, film, journalism and political philosophy, and for a few years he worked as a freelance writer for alternative weekly newspapers. Along with three works of non-fiction, Erickson has published 10 novels in more than a dozen languages. His books have appeared on best-of-the-year lists by ''The New York Tim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Larry McCaffery
Lawrence F. McCaffery Jr. (born May 13, 1946) is an American literary critic, editor, and retired professor of English and comparative literature at San Diego State University. His work and teaching focuses on postmodern literature, contemporary fiction, and Bruce Springsteen. He also played a role in helping to establish science fiction as a major literary genre. Early life and education McCaffery was born in 1946 in Dallas, Texas. He received his PhD in 1975, with a dissertation on the works of Robert Coover. Career Academic career He joined the Department of English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University in 1976. He taught in SDSU's English Department until retiring in 2010. During his career as a professor, McCaffery took up visiting professorships at University of Nice, University of California, San Diego, Deep Springs College (where William T. Vollmann attended), Seikei University in Tokyo, Japan and was a Fulbright Lecturer at Beijing Foreign Studie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1989 American Novels
1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin Wall in November, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia and the overthrow of the communist dictatorship in Romania in December; the movement ended in December 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Revolutions against communist governments in Eastern Europe mainly succeeded, but the year also saw the suppression by the Chinese government of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing. It was the year of the first Brazilian direct presidential election in 29 years, since the end of the military government in 1985 that ruled the country for more than twenty years, and marked the redemocratization process's final point. F. W. de Klerk was elected as State President of South Africa, and his regime gradually dismantled the aparthei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Clock
''Black Clock'' was an American literary magazine that published twenty-one issues over twelve years. Edited by Steve Erickson, the magazine was "dedicated to fiction, poetry and creative essays that explore the frontier of constructive anarchy...''Black Clock'' is audacious rather than safe, visceral rather than academic, intellectually engaging rather than antiseptically cerebral, and not above fun. Produced by writers for writers, ''Black Clock'' encourages risk and eschews editorial interference." From its inception in 2004 until its demise in 2016, ''Black Clock'' featured work by Don DeLillo, Lydia Davis, David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Lethem, Richard Powers, Joanna Scott, Dana Spiotta, Rick Moody, Maggie Nelson, Greil Marcus, Samuel R. Delany, Miranda July, Geoff Dyer, Brian Evenson, Darcey Steinke, Lynne Tillman, Michael Ventura, Mark Z. Danielewski and William T. Vollmann among others. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amnesiascope
''Amnesiascope'' is a 1996 novel by Steve Erickson. Set in Los Angeles after a cataclysmic earthquake, the novel incorporates elements of other novels that Erickson had published, such as the silent film from his first novel, ''Days Between Stations''. Though not a genre novel, it was a finalist for the British Fantasy Award. Plot summary The main character lives in a converted hotel in Hollywood, where he works as the film critic for a weekly newspaper. The story is told in an oneiric fashion, without a clear explanation of all the strange elements of a partly real, partly imaginary Los Angeles. ''Amnesiascope'' focuses mostly on the protagonist's relationship with Viv, a sexually adventurous, committed artist, with whom the narrator works on the making of an avant-garde erotic short film. The narrator also has to deal with different factions at the paper, the various time zones he experiences driving through LA, the complexities of making a pornographic film, and his feelings o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sea Came In At Midnight
''The Sea Came in at Midnight'' (1999) is the sixth novel by Steve Erickson. It has been translated into French, German, Italian, Russian and Japanese. It was named one of the year's best novels by ''The New York Times Book Review'' and shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award. It was followed by a sequel, ''Our Ecstatic Days'', in 2005. Plot The novel starts at the end of 1999, when Kristin, a teenage drop-out, answers a sexual ad written by a man who calls himself the Occupant. Behind the poetic language of the ad, it is clear that the Occupant is looking for a sexual slave, yet Kristin accepts the pact and goes to live in his house in Los Angeles. The Occupant's job is unclear: he defines himself as an apocalyptologist, and is busy drawing a calendar on the walls of his bedroom, on which he maps all the irrational events following May 1968, which, according to him, define the end-of-the-century in which the novel is set. Their relationship evolves, until, after a climactic mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Days Between Stations (novel)
''Days Between Stations'' is the first novel by Steve Erickson. Upon publication in 1985 it received notable praise from Thomas Pynchon and has been cited as an influence by novelists such as Jonathan Lethem and Mark Z. Danielewski. It has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Polish and Japanese. Plot Lauren and Jason are a young newlywed Kansas couple living in San Francisco. Jason, a cyclist training for the 1972 Summer Olympics, does not come home for the birth of his son, Jules—but fathers an illegitimate son and spends the subsequent year away. Dazed by Jason's decision, Lauren leaves the infant Jules and wanders Los Angeles alone, where a stranger with a severe stutter shelters her overnight. Lauren returns home, losing all memory of that night. Jules later develops a stutter, and dies at nine years of age. At the same time, the stranger, Michel Sarasan, wakes up amnesiac, and no longer stuttering. Staying with his estranged uncle, Michel learns that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geli Raubal
Angela Maria "Geli" Raubal (; 4 June 1908 – 18 September 1931) was an Austrian woman who was the half-niece of Adolf Hitler. Born in Linz, Austria-Hungary, she was the second child and eldest daughter of Leo Raubal Sr. and Hitler's half-sister, Angela Raubal. Raubal lived in close contact with her half-uncle Adolf from 1925 until her presumed suicide in 1931. Life Angela Maria "Geli" Raubal was born in Linz, Austria-Hungary on 4 June 1908, where she was raised with her brother Leo and sister Elfriede. Her father died at the age of 31 when Geli was two. She and Elfriede accompanied their mother when she became Hitler's housekeeper in 1925; Raubal was 17 at the time and spent the next six years in close contact with her half-uncle, who was 19 years her senior. Her mother was given a position as housekeeper at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden in 1928. Raubal moved into Hitler's Munich apartment in 1929 when she enrolled in medicine at Ludwig Maximilian University but sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josef Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician and philologist who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945. He was one of Adolf Hitler's closest and most devoted followers, known for his skills in public speaking and his virulent antisemitism which was evident in his publicly voiced views. He advocated progressively harsher discrimination, including the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust. Goebbels, who aspired to be an author, obtained a doctorate in philology from the University of Heidelberg in 1921. He joined the Nazi Party in 1924 and worked with Gregor Strasser in its northern branch. He was appointed ''Gauleiter'' of Berlin in 1926, where he began to take an interest in the use of propaganda to promote the party and its programme. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry quickly gained ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zeitgeist
In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a ''Zeitgeist'' (; ; capitalized in German) is an invisible agent, force, or daemon dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history. The term is usually associated with Georg W. F. Hegel, contrasting with Hegel's use of '' Volksgeist'' "national spirit" and '' Weltgeist'' "world-spirit". Its coinage and popularization precede Hegel, and are mostly due to Herder and Goethe. Other philosophers who were associated with such concepts include Spencer and Voltaire. Contemporary use of the term sometimes, more colloquially, is similar to the Overton Window in referring to a schema of fashions or fads that prescribe what is considered to be acceptable or tasteful for an era: e.g., in fields like architecture, psychotherapy, or journalism. Theory of leadership Hegel in '' Phenomenology of the Spirit'' (1807) uses both ''Weltgeist'' and ''Volksgeist'', but prefers the phrase ''Geist der Zeiten'' "spirit of the times ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First-person Narrative
A first-person narrative (also known as a first-person perspective, voice, point of view, etc.) is a mode of storytelling in which a storyteller recounts events from that storyteller's own personal point of view, using first-person grammar such as "I", "me", "my", and "myself" (also, in plural form, "we", "us", etc.). It must be narrated by a first-person character, such as a protagonist (or other focal character), re-teller, witness, or peripheral character. Alternatively, in a visual storytelling medium (such as video, television, or film), the first-person perspective is a graphical perspective rendered through a character's visual field, so the camera is "seeing" out of a character's eyes. A classic example of a first-person protagonist narrator is Charlotte Brontë's '' Jane Eyre'' (1847), in which the title character is telling the story in which she herself is also the protagonist: "I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
100 English-Language Books Of Fiction
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sports, where it commonly denotes the first, leading, or top thing in a group. 1 is the unit of counting or measurement, a determiner for singular nouns, and a gender-neutral pronoun. Historically, the representation of 1 evolved from ancient Sumerian and Babylonian symbols to the modern Arabic numeral. In mathematics, 1 is the multiplicative identity, meaning that any number multiplied by 1 equals the same number. 1 is by convention not considered a prime number. In digital technology, 1 represents the "on" state in binary code, the foundation of computing. Philosophically, 1 symbolizes the ultimate reality or source of existence in various traditions. In mathematics The number 1 is the first natural number after 0. Each natural number, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
