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1
Gregoriou, Christiana. "Plotting and characterisation in Sophie Hannah’s The Other Half Lives: a cognitive stylistic approach." Journal of Literary Semantics 52, no. 1 (March 29, 2023): 41–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jls-2023-2004.
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Abstract (Sophie Hannah’s. 2009. The Other Half Lives. London: Hodder). The Other Half Lives both complies with, and departs from, the crime fiction formula or text schema. It features a mystery the specifics of which are unravelled non-chronologically, while its numerous crimes and non-ideal criminals and victims disrupt readers’ world schemas and help enable its surprising effects. Not unlike such fiction, the story’s early happenings feature late in the telling, while many happenings are given from different character perspectives. Both of these help unsettle narrative perspective, and generate suspense, mystery, and readers’ later repairing and replacing of frames. Focalisation and the working and reworking of killing characters’ early depiction are techniques also enabling foreshadowing and misdirection, for readers’ sympathies and prejudices to be manipulated accordingly, and for surprise revelations to prove effective, even when a surprise ending is – given the nature of this genre – only to be expected.
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Hardy, Donald E. "Narrating knowledge: presupposition and background in Flannery O'Connor's fiction." Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 6, no. 1 (February 1997): 29–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/096394709700600102.
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Clausal presupposition in Flannery O'Connor's fiction is examined and shown to contribute stylistically to O'Connor's explorations of the fallibility of human knowledge. Marked presuppositional constructions - those in which the narrator and narratee do not share the background knowledge of the presupposition - are analysed as attempts on the part of the narrator to put into a shared gestalt background contested knowledge. These attempts have three main effects: (1) an ironic comment on false knowledge held by a character; (2) a displacement of knowledge from a character's awareness; (3) an empathetic response to a character's knowledge of mystery or destiny. A call is made to develop a typology of literary uses of marked presuppositional constructions making reference not only to the quality of knowledge among the narrator, narratee, and character(s), but also to the specific literary effect of marked presupposition, e.g. irony, narrative suspense, empathy. If it is true that marked presupposition is a fundamental characteristic of literary enjoyment (Kock, 1976), a typology of a narrator's use of contested presuppositions tells us much about a particular author's characteristic strategies of engaging a reader's interest. It is left an open question whether all authors whose narrators use contested presuppositions are as concerned as O'Connor was with the fallibility of human knowledge.
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Has-Tokarz, Anita. "Kryminały (są) dla dziewczyn… — refleksje wokół cyklu detektywistycznego Karen Karbo o Minervie Clark." Literatura i Kultura Popularna 28 (October 6, 2022): 63–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.19195/0867-7441.28.5.
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In recent years, there has been a growing interest in detective literature among the youngest readers. The appeal of this type of literature is confirmed not only by a kind of “publication overproduction” observable in the segment of books for children and young adults, but also by reader rankings. The latter also show two significant trends: firstly — the declining age of the youngest readers who choose detective stories, secondly — girls are beginning to prevail among the young recipients of this literature.
The goal of the article is to seek an answer to the question why young girls increasingly often choose detective literature and what makes it attractive from the reception perspective. The example which is the focus of attention is the mystery-type trilogy written by American author Karen Karbo about the adventures of an eccentric teenager Minerva Clark. The series consists of the following volumes: Minerva Clark Gets a Clue, Minerva Clark Goes to the Dogs, and Minerva Clark Gives Up the Ghost, all of which can be categorized as classical detective stories.
The latest detective fiction for young girls, which readily utilizes gender and feminist topics, features more and more characters of brave and independent female amateur detectives. Minerva Clark has joined this colorful gallery of characters, who appeared in the twentieth-century literature thanks to Miss Marple novels authored by Agatha Christie. The literary character of Minerva Clark arouses associations with another fictional character meant for female teenage readers — Nancy Drew, the titular hero of American novels Nancy Drew Mystery Series, published in the USA since the 1930s.
Minerva Clark has become part of the contemporary discourse on femininity and the role of gender in popular culture. The popularity of the trilogy in question as well as the whole trend of detective stories for girls can be explained in several ways. Apart from the feminine topic repertoire, the literary factors are of significance: suspense-keeping stories, captivating plots, young people’s slang, and most of all — humor, highly thought of by the young audience. In Karen Karbo’s series we are dealing with verbal-intellectual and situational comedy as well as that of characters. The content-related comedy-making factors in the trilogy about Minerva Clark also include humorous narration (play on words), situational scenes, and a happy ending. Books about female teenage detectives such as Minerva evoke a substantial response among their gender also because they are written with present-day girls and their needs in mind.
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Grosevych, I. V. "GOTHIC FICTION: FIGURATIVE PLOT PARADIGM." PRECARPATHIAN BULLETIN OF THE SHEVCHENKO SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY Word, no. 2(54) (January 22, 2019): 275–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.31471/2304-7402-2019-2(54)-275-287.
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The article deals with the theoretical generalization of the attributes of a poetic of gothic, in particular in the article is analyzed in details the figurative-motive and plot-compositional levels; is traced the evolution of the image of Devil; is identified the triune category − mystery / horror / suspense – as a genre constant of gothic fiction; is identified the road archetype; is analyzed the functionality of gothic, contrast as the dominant feature of the gothic paradigm; and also is grounded the philosophical doctrine of the theodicy as one of the fundamental basis of all gothic fiction.
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Skinner, Robert E., and Paula L. Woods. "Spooks, Spies and Private Eyes: Black Mystery, Crime and Suspense Fiction." African American Review 31, no. 2 (1997): 336. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3042481.
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Alobaidi, Shaimaa. "The World of Mystery and Crime: Agatha Christie Techniques." European Journal of Theoretical and Applied Sciences 2, no. 3 (May 1, 2024): 208–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.59324/ejtas.2024.2(3).17.
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And Then There Were None and A Murder is Announced are two prominent works written by the “Queen of Crime” Agatha Christie. While both novels belong to the genre of the murder mystery and detective fiction, the writer employs different literary techniques to build suspense and keep the readers’ engagement until the final scene. Moreover, Agatha Christie also pays great attention to the details of the crime. Providing the audience with certain clues, the writer succeeds to manipulate the reader’s thoughts. Thereby, And Then There Were None and A Murder is Announced are remarkable examples of the murder mystery that is achieved by different literary means making the stories topical literary works.
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John, Jerrin Aleyamma. "Serial Killing as a Defence Mechanism: A Study of Thomas Harris’s “The Silence of the Lambs”." SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH 7, no. 11 (November 28, 2019): 8. http://dx.doi.org/10.24113/ijellh.v7i11.10123.
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The literary canon carries with it a huge array of possible writings exploring the various contours of fiction, the genre of Detective fiction is one such umbrella term. The effect of mystery and suspense and the surprise factors being hidden away in the pages, keeps the readers glued to detective fiction. This paper explores the plot line of one of the prominent detective stories, Thomas Harris’s ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ in search of certain existential questions regarding the named serial killer in the plot. The social evil of killing the lives of many for the purely pleasure aspect is viewed from multiple viewpoints and a new reading of the plot by placing it within relevant contextual framework is carried out. A traversal through the psychological, behavioural and social norms of the context is explores within the paper.
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Cicovacki, Borislav. "Zora D. by Isidora Zebeljan: Towards the new opera." Muzikologija, no. 4 (2004): 223–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/muz0404223c.
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Opera Zora D., composed by Isidora Zebeljan during 2002 and 2003, and which was premiered in Amsterdam in June 2003, is the first Serbian opera that had a world premiere abroad. It is also the first Serbian opera that has been staged outside Serbia since 1935, after being acclaimed at a competition organized by the Genesis Foundation from London. Isidora Zebeljan was commissioned (granted financial backing) to compose a complete opera with a secured stage realization. The Dutch Chamber Opera (Opera studio Nederland) and the Viennese Chamber Opera (Wiener Kammeroper) were the co-producers of the first production. The opera was directed by David Pountney, the renowned opera director, while an international team of young singers and celebrated artists assisted the co-production. The opera was played three times in Amsterdam. Winfried Maczewski conducted the Amsterdam Nieuw Ensemble whereas Daniel Hoyem Cavazza conducted the Wiener Kammeroper on twelve performances. The Viennese premier of Zora D. opened the season of celebrations, thus marking the 50th anniversary of the Wiener Kammeroper. The libretto, based on the script for a TV film by Dusan Ristic, was co-written by Isidora Zebeljan, Milica Zebeljan and Borislav Cicovacki. Speaking of genre, the libretto represents a m?lange of thriller, melodrama and mystery, with elements of fiction. The opera consists of the prologue and seven scenes. The story, set in the present-day Belgrade, also goes back to the 1930?s and the periods interweave. The opera was written for four vocalists: the soprano, the baritone, and two mezzo-sopranos. The chamber orchestra has fifteen musicians. The story: One summer day in 1935, Belgrade poetess Zora Dulijan mysteriously disappears. Sixty years later, Mina, an ordinary girl from Belgrade, quite unexpectedly becomes part of an incredible story, which gradually unravels as time goes by. Led by a dream (recurring night after night, with some vague verses about poplar trees and contours of a mysterious woman with a silver scarf being all that Mina remembers) she sets out to solve the mystery that seems to haunt her for no apparent reason. Part of the secret is also an invisible force, which Mina uses to gradually piece together the story of a great love that was brutally brought to an end 60 years ago and now seeks fulfillment. At the same time, Vida, a woman in her 80s, who has just returned to Belgrade from a long exile, begins to feel tortured and haunted by ghouls from the past, the very same she has been trying to escape all those years. Mina, desperate to solve the mystery, and Vida, in search of final rest and redemption, meet to disclose to us the answer and tell us what really happened to Zora D. The leading characters of the opera, whose main attribute is illusiveness, undergo transformation that is something rarely found in opera literature. This quality of the characters and the story, as well as the absence of a real drama in the libretto, matches the specific idea of a contemporary opera. Unlike composers who insist on giving characters psychological quality, thus reducing their emotions to clich?s for reasons of clarity, Isidora Zebeljan demonstrates a need for a completely different type of opera. Her idea is to have an opera which focuses on the sensual exploits of music itself. This is the very type of opera sought after by Isidora Zebeljan. The first and most striking feature of her music is a very unique melodic invention. Opera Zora D. could be described as a necklace of thickly threaded music pearls. Microelements of the traditional music from Serbia (Vojvodina), Romania and the south of the Balkans give her melodies a very special quality. Those elements, however, have not been taken over in their entirety, nor do they exist in the form that would link this music to any particular type of folk music. Music elements of the traditional music, incorporated in the music expression of Isidora Zebeljan, provide additional distinctiveness and the colour, while being experienced as an integral part of Zebeljan?s creative being which carries within itself the awareness of the composer?s musical roots. Melodic elements of the opera expressed in such a manner give form to vocal parts, which require of performers great musicality and perfect technique without compromising the nature of their vocal expression. Specific chords with a diminished fifth, resulting from the use of folk music scales with augmented second, give the opera a distinct harmonic quality. The rhythmic and metric components of music are complex, naturally stemming from the melody and are characterized by a mixture of rhythms and changeable metrics. The rhythmic patterns of percussion are incorporated in the whole by parallel lining up of melodic and rhythmic layers, so that they produce sonorous multiplicity. Very often the rhythmic elements have characteristics of a dance. The chamber orchestra consists of flute (piccolo and alto), clarinet and bass-clarinet, saxophone (soprano and alto) bassoon, French horn, trumpet, harp, piano, percussion, and string quintet. By providing specific orchestration and coloring, Isidora Zebeljan manages to completely shift the real dramatic suspense from words to music particularly the orchestra, thus causing various emotional states to quickly change. Speaking of structure, the opera represents an infinite sequence of melodies. Although rarely, melodic entities have, in some places, the form of arias. There are no real recitatives in the entire opera. Each segment of the opera belongs to a corresponding melodic section of the stage that they are part of. The extraordinary quality of the music in Zora D. lies in the music surprise that it provides, which is an element of the composer?s language and style rarely seen in the music literature but is a symbol of a special talent. Emotional states are not merely evoked through particular musical clich?s, the unusual origin of which may be found in the exceptional parallel quality of states stemming from the very music. The listener, in his or her initial encounter with the music of the opera, will never hear dark and disconsolate music when tragic and dramatic happenings are taking place. Listening to the music will, however, help them feel the sound layer of the tragedy that is present in the offered sound. They will not follow it consciously but, instead, they will be leaded to the exact emotional stimulus that they will not be able to defy rationally. Such a music expression we call a music fiction. Artistic team involved in the first production of Zora D. has discovered a HVS technique, which helps shifting elements of scenography, from one set into the next, very efficiently and effectively. Isidora Zebeljan?s opera Zora D. represents a great success of Serbian music on the international scene, and undoubtedly the greatest success of Serbian opera. Her music liberates listeners from the compulsion of reflecting upon the content they are listening to. Instead, her music compels them to feel.
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COULARDEAU, Jacques. "FREE-FALLING DESCENT INTO EPIPHANY OR APOCALYPSE STEPHEN KING – A FAIRY TALE." International Journal of Theology, Philosophy and Science 6, no. 11 (November 27, 2022): 5–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.26520/ijtps.2022.6.11.5-29.
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Stephen King has published more than 70 books, many of them adapted to the cinema and television, some original series with no published scenario, except Storm of the Century in 1999. His reach is a lot wider than plain horror. He systematically mixes the various genres of horror, fantasy, suspense, mystery, science fiction, etc. I will only consider his latest stand-alone novel with no co-author, and not part of a series like Gwendy’s Final Task, also published in 2022, co-authored with Richard Chizmar. I will show the style uses some patterns to build the architecture of the story, in this case, ternary structures at all levels of story and style. This ternary pattern is borrowed from the Bible and many fairy tales collected by the Grimm Brothers. The ending brings up a problem: it locks up the two deep and deeper levels with a concrete slab, thus breaking the ternary topography. Is it meaningful about Stephen King’s fiction, or is it only suspending the situation in order to produce a sequel by reopening the passage under the concrete slab, or when Gogmagog manages to escape the deeper level and to invade the human world? That’s Stephen King’s mystery. His fiction is so popular and has been so much exploited on the various screens that we wonder if this multifarious fiction will survive the author, even with his two sons to promote and prolong the fame of his fiction when it becomes necessary.
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Dr Sunil V. Pawar. "The War Beyond Ruin by Gemma Liviero: A Novel about Atrocities of War." Creative Launcher 5, no. 2 (June 30, 2020): 60–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.53032/tcl.2020.5.2.07.
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War causes physical exertion and suffering. The soldiers and the people have to make themselves indifferent to these otherwise they would be destroyed. There is always uncertainty in war. Chance also plays an important role in war as it makes everything more uncertain. The whole course of events is interfered by it. War is a matter of determination and courage. The War Beyond Ruin is Liviero's war based fiction. It is a lyrical writing and unusual story. Though a war novel, this is not typical World-War-II-era novel. It's beautiful and gritty historical fiction combined with mystery and suspense and completely unique characters who live through hard times. The ending is life-affirming and fills with hope. It is all about the misery and complexity of life during and after WW II in Germany and Italy.
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Schubert, Christoph. "Tarantino’s eloquent villains." English Text Construction 16, no. 2 (December 31, 2023): 119–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/etc.22022.sch.
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Abstract Suspense as an aesthetic effect is a key narrative strategy of thriller movies, serving the function of entertainment for wide audiences. As the plot unfolds, arcs of suspense rely on triggering an appealing sense of anticipation that calls for a resolution. The present study examines the creation of suspense throughout fictional dialogue in Quentin Tarantino’s popular feature films Pulp Fiction (1994), Inglourious Basterds (2009), and Django Unchained (2012). In these movies, dialogic interaction is often dominated by eloquent villains who skilfully flout the conversational maxims of Grice’s cooperative principle, thereby exercising verbal power over other interlocutors. As is demonstrated in a qualitative pragma-stylistic framework, the villains’ discursive strategies amount to stylistic deviation resulting in suspenseful implicatures. In particular, suspense is commonly caused by digressing from current topics, by giving too little information or too many details, by being insincere or ironic, and by making equivocal or redundant statements.
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Nash, Ilana, and R. Gordon Kelly. "Mystery Fiction and Modern Life." South Central Review 18, no. 3/4 (2001): 122. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3190359.
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Beasley, Brett. "Kant’s “Jewel” and Collins’s “Moonstone”." Renascence 75, no. 3 (2023): 212–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/renascence2023753/412.
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Mystery fiction is sometimes assumed—both by scholars and by general readers—to have a simple or even simplistic relationship to morality. Mysteries, on this view, are straightforward "whodunnits": They satisfy readers by identifying wrongdoing and then assigning blame to the individual or individuals responsible. In this paper, I offer a contrary view. I show that the moral laboratory of mystery fiction often winds up subverting, undermining, and unsettling some of our most basic moral assumptions and our standard approaches to thinking about moral responsibility and moral justification. It does so, I argue, by emphasizing what philosophers term moral luck. I center my analysis on moral luck as it appears in The Moonstone, the novel T. S. Eliot called “the first, the longest, and the best” piece of detective fiction, and I offer suggestions for reading later works of mystery fiction with moral luck in mind.
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Hood, Yolanda, and Vicky Zygouris-Coe. "Fostering Authentic Inquiry and Investigation through Middle Grade Mystery and Suspense Novels." Voices from the Middle 23, no. 3 (March 1, 2016): 33–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.58680/vm201628368.
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College- and career-ready students are critical readers and thinkers. New educational standards call for providing students with opportunities to critically read texts, answer and formulate meaningful questions, and conduct research that will result in deeper learning. Teachers can use quality young adult literature to develop students’ reading, research, and inquiry skills. The authors of this article share their analysis of sample middle grade mystery and suspense novels and provide specific suggestions for fostering students’ authentic inquiry and investigation skills in the English language arts classroom.
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Nykytchenko, Kateryna P., and Halyna V. Onyshchak. "TRANSLATION, MULTIMODALITY AND HORROR FICTION." Alfred Nobel University Journal of Philology 2, no. 26/2 (December 26, 2023): 253–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.32342/2523-4463-2023-2-26/2-16.
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The paper outlines a framework for approaching the complexities of translating multimodal means in horror fiction. Nowadays, the horror genre is reaching its peak, becoming the most remarkable mass product in demand. It is sharply distinguished from other literary genres due to generating a morbid mood and heart-stopping suspense in the textual canvas. From this perspective, the research aims to identify multimodal means essential for creating suspense in King’s horror novels “Pet Sematary” (1983) and “Outsider” (2018) and determine the translation strategies used to render them into Ukrainian. In this regard, multimodal means stir fresh interest since they implicitly complement and clarify the information transmitted verbally. The research framework is designed with two primary objectives. Firstly, to disclose the phonic and graphic means utilized in recreating horror imagery in the TL text. Secondly, to examine the translation strategies employed in rendering the multimodal means into the TL. The principles of the comparative approach were chosen to identify the similarities and differences between translation strategies in the analyzed texts. The research methodology adopted in this study enables a comprehensive study of the multimodal means in the horror fiction genre, employing a meticulous approach that involves data collection, analysis, and interpretation through the lens of translation strategies, contextual and pragmatic analyses. The conducted research reveals the involvement of phonic and graphic means to influence the readership unconsciously. The frequency of phonic means depends on the context of their occurrence. Graphic means are represented by syngraphemic, supragraphemic, and topographemic elements. To render the sense of the SL adequately and meet the TL audience expectations, the translators of “Pet Sematary” and “Outsider” advocated semantic, grammatical, and pragmatic translation strategies. Synonymous and contextual substitution, loan, antonymous and descriptive translation, addition, and compression proved to be the dominant translation transformations. The in-depth analysis has shown that the translators faced multiple hindrances, making some errors in encoding polysemiotic signs. However, the TL version makes sense, undeniably affecting the reader and retaining the author’s communicative intent.
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Mintz, Susannah B. "Crime Fiction and the Knowing of Pain." Literature and Medicine 41, no. 2 (September 2023): 481–502. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lm.2023.a921573.
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Abstract: Recent studies of pain have disputed the idea that pain eludes representation in language. Where these have largely focused on the experience of pain, my paper examines the epistemological function of pain in crime fiction, a genre that by definition foregrounds meaning: what and how we know. A good crime story depends structurally on resolution, but its pleasure derives more thoroughly from suspense. Pain would seem to defy those logics; surely we long for its ending, not its persistence. Yet many contemporary detectives do their work in pain, embodying an impossible contradiction between chaos and order. This suggests that pain is somehow integral to the process of knowing, inviting us to rethink pain as disrupting rather than constituting the forward motion of meaning.
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Y, Lalitha. "Postmodernism in the Fiction Synchology Summary of Kumaraselvas Fiction." International Research Journal of Tamil 3, S-1 (June 14, 2021): 132–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.34256/irjt21s121.
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The article Post Modernism, written by writer Kumaraselva, examines the emergence of postmodernism in the short stories Nagamalai, Karatam, Ukilu, Vidalu and Uyirmaranam, and then modernity does not see anything as universal and analyses everything separately. It is also expanding beyond the limits of art and literature to philosophy, politics, lifestyle, technology, architecture, drama, cinema. Postmodernism created myths with a mystery that distorts language, distorts stories and expresses the poetry of the language. It also attracts the attention of the readers and gives them a happy reading experience. It is noteworthy that postmodernism is not theory but also in life.
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Văsieș, Alex. "Narrative Devices in Motion: From Genre Fiction to Mainstream Fictoin in Florin Chirculescu’s Prose." Caietele Echinox 43 (December 1, 2022): 216–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.24193/cechinox.2022.43.14.
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This article explores the dynamics between Romanian genre fiction and mainstream fiction in the postcommunist period, trying to negotiate the instrumentalizations of narrative devices usually found in popular literature (be it fantasy, crime, or mystery fiction) in a novel that transcends normative genre boundaries. Thus, the text traces a specific way in which some Romanian writers (in this case Florin Chirculescu) have navigated the strenuous path brought by capitalism in the local literary scene.
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Malmgren, Carl D. "Anatomy of Murder: Mystery, Detective, and Crime Fiction." Journal of Popular Culture 30, no. 4 (March 1997): 115–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1997.3004_115.x.
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Steere, Elizabeth. "“The mystery of the Myrtle Room”: Reading Wilkie Collins’ The Dead Secret as an Early Female Detective Novel." Victorian Popular Fictions Journal 5, no. 1 (July 3, 2023): 58–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.46911/yrrl8350.
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While Wilkie Collins’ novels The Moonstone (1868) and The Woman in White (1859-60) have long been accepted as part of the early mystery canon, Collins’ earlier novel The Dead Secret (1857) is rarely included. The Dead Secret is here reconsidered as one of the earliest English female detective novels, revealing its heretofore unrecognised significance to the genre of detective fiction and the evolution of the literary female detective. The Dead Secret’s protagonist, Rosamond, is almost Holmesian in her methodical collection of evidence and tactical lines of questioning to arrive at the solution of the mystery, but she also employs techniques more often attributed to female detectives, demonstrating the importance of emotion, intuition, surveillance, and proximity. In solving the mystery, Rosamond also disrupts the status quo, as is more typical of sleuthing heroines of sensation fiction. The Dead Secret demonstrates Collins’ innovations to the emerging genre of detective fiction, before its tropes become typified by Sherlock Holmes, and reveals the overlap of tropes that originate with sensation novels.
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Rowland, Susan, and Michael Cohen. "Murder Most Fair: The Appeal of Mystery Fiction." Modern Language Review 97, no. 4 (October 2002): 928. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3738625.
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Kowshikah, N., and M. Siva Ram Sanker. "Unveiling Narrative Threads: Wilde’s Spectral Tale vs. James’s Haunting Mystery." Shanlax International Journal of Arts, Science and Humanities 11, S2-March (March 30, 2024): 33–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.34293/sijash.v11is2-march.7504.
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The research delves into the distinct narrative techniques employed in the two novellas, Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost and Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw. Wilde’s work, characterised by its satirical and humorous approach to the supernatural, stands in stark contrast to James’s psychological horror narrative, which intricately weaves a web of ambiguity and suspense. The research examines the role of humour in The Canterville Ghost and its impact on the overall tone, drawing attention to Wilde’s use of satire to challenge conventional ghost story tropes. In contrast, The Turn of the Screw is explored for its psychological depth, with a focus on James’s subtle and intricate portrayal of the human psyche, leaving readers in a state of haunting disquiet. Through a comparative lens, the research seeks to uncover the ways in which these two novellas employ narrative techniques to achieve their respective effects, shedding light on the interplay between humour and horror in literature and the diverse strategies writers employ to engage readers in the realm of the supernatural.
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Levay. "Remaining a Mystery: Gertrude Stein, Crime Fiction and Popular Modernism." Journal of Modern Literature 36, no. 4 (2013): 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.2979/jmodelite.36.4.1.
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Eichel, Roxana. "Genre Transgression in Contemporary Romanian Crime Fiction." Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica 11, no. 1 (November 1, 2019): 21–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2019-0002.
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Abstract Crime fiction is currently evolving towards a literary genre which encompasses the intertwining of several textual practices, rhetorical modes, cultural identities, and topoi. Multiculturalism and the relation to alterity are gradually conquering the realm of detective fiction, thus rendering the crime enigma or suspense only secondary in comparison to other intellectual “enjeux” of the text. Transgressing the national horizon, contemporary detective fiction in Romanian literature can be thus considered as “world literature” (Nilsson–Damrosch–D’haen 2017) not only because it does not engage representations of Romanian spaces alone but also due to its translatability, its transnational range of cultural values and practices. This article aims to discuss several categories of examples for this fresh diversity that Romanian crime fiction has encountered. Novels written recently by authors such as Petru Berteanu, Caius Dobrescu, Mihaela Apetrei, Alex Leo Şerban, or Eugen Ovidiu Chirovici employ variations such as either alternative narrators or cosmopolitan characters, or contribute to anthologies, writing directly in English in order to gain access to a more complex audience. The paper sets out to analyse the literary or rhetorical devices at work in these transgressional phenomena as well as their effects on contemporary Romanian crime narratives and their possible correlations to transnational phenomena.1
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Jaber, Maysaa Husam. "A “Burlesque Queen in Bobby Socks”: Domesticity, Criminality, and Suspense in Charles Williams’s Noir Fiction." Canadian Review of American Studies 52, no. 1 (April 1, 2022): 35–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cras-2021-004.
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This article proposes that Charles Williams’s mid-twentieth-century noir fiction reshapes post-war representations of gender roles and paves the way for various renditions and developments of noir. Williams’s works are narratives of transgression meeting domesticity, crime meeting docility, and cunning meeting conformity; they portray a deadly recipe that comprises different, even conflicting ingredients of a fusion between domesticity, crime, and suspense. By examining the recurring figure of the criminal housewife in his work, especially Hell Hath No Fury (1953), this article argues that Williams brings forth a complex and subversive gender schema to trouble both the creed of domesticity popular in the 1950s and the stereotyping of the lethal seductress prevalent in noir fiction. By so doing, Williams’s noir not only brings the transgression of women to the fore but also displays a compelling picture of post-war gender roles in the US under McCarthyism.
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Möldre, Aile. "Serijinės literatūros vertimai Estijos laikraščiuose XX a. pradžioje (1900–1940 m.)." Knygotyra 82 (July 16, 2024): 115–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/knygotyra.2024.82.5.
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The paper explores the serialised novels and stories in the two leading Estonian daily newspapers, Päewaleht and Postimees, the majority of which were translations. The approach, combining book and translation history, is driven by the two issues debated in the media in 1900–1940: the desire to distance from the dominant German and Russian cultural influences and search for a new orientation; the categories of literature serialised in newspapers including the proportion of popular literature (genres like mystery, thrillers, romance, etc.) and the concern of intellectuals about its growth. The study uses the years 1906–1911 and 1928–1933 as a sample for content analysis of the feuilleton sections of the two newspapers in order to examine the changes in source literatures and the category of literature. The results demonstrate that German literature still dominated the serialised fiction translations at the beginning of the century, although many other literatures were used as sources. In the independent Republic of Estonia, in the 1920s and 1930s, Anglo-American literature occupied the leading position in accordance with the general cultural orientation. Still, German had not become marginal, and the range of other source literatures was quite diverse. The proportion of popular literature, mystery novels, and romance above all, started to increase in Päewaleht since 1906, becoming dominant in the 1920s and 1930s. Postimees also started to include some mystery and thriller novels in the selection, but in general, remained true to its preference for literary fiction. Thus, the agency of the Editors-in-Chief and editorial boards can be seen in the choice of works. The overall abundance of translated popular fiction in the book market and periodicals caused the protests of writers and educational circles that culminated with the suggestion to introduce a translation tax, which was, however, abandoned.
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Huang, Yunte. "The Lasting Lure of the Asian Mystery." PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 133, no. 2 (March 2018): 384–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2018.133.2.384.
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Among the numerous accolades and awards garnered by viet thanh nguyen's debut novel, the sympathizer (2015), the one receiving the least attention from academic critics will probably be the Edgar Award, bestowed by the Mystery Writers of America. After all, The Sympathizer boasts aesthetic achievements that far exceed the generic confines of a conventional mystery novel. Also, even in the age of cultural studies, when the divide between the popular and the elite is supposed to have all but disappeared, literary scholars, if they are honest with themselves, still hang on to the notion that there is a qualitative difference, or a hierarchy, separating literary fiction from crime fiction, the highbrow from the lowbrow. It may be true that we no longer live at a time when an eminent critic like Edmund Wilson would attack mystery novels by asserting, as he did in 1945, partly in response to Agatha Christie's popular mystery novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, that “with so many fine books to read …; there is no need to bore ourselves with this rubbish” (qtd. in Bradford 117). And there is more than half a century separating us from the era when Ross Macdonald, one of the most accomplished practitioners of the mystery genre as well as a trained literary scholar, lamented in his 1954 lecture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he had received a doctoral degree in English, that “[t]hough it is one of the dominant literary forms of our age, the mystery has received very little study” (11). Even after Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida enshrined Edgar Allan Poe's detective short story “The Purloined Letter” as a darling of poststructuralist analysis, most literary scholars worth their salt would continue to regard crime fiction as a subpar genre, something that, as Macdonald said, is reserved for their leisure hours, akin to crossword puzzles in a newspaper (11). Or, as Wilson put it, “Who cares who killed Roger Ackroyd?” (qtd. in Bradford 117).
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DAVIS, J. MADISON. "Two Ways of Describing the Elephant: Science Fiction and the Mystery." World Literature Today 84, no. 3 (2010): 9–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/wlt.2010.0198.
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des Forges, Alexander. "Building Shanghai, One Page at a Time: The Aesthetics of Installment Fiction at the Turn of the Century." Journal of Asian Studies 62, no. 3 (August 2003): 781–810. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3591860.
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In the last two decades of the Qing dynasty, installment publication became the dominant mode of presentation for Chinese fiction, as it had been for European and Japanese literature for more than half a century. Whether printed daily as one feature in a newspaper, weekly in literary supplements, or monthly in the fiction journals that took off in the early 1900s, Chinese vernacular fiction of this period appeared in parts over time, just as the works of Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, Jippensha Ikku, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and even Henry James did (Link 1981; Lee and Nathan 1985; Chen 1988). As early as 1892, Shanghai author Han Bangqing praised the installment form for heightening suspense and forcing the reader to imagine what might happen next; by 1910 “addiction” to installment fiction could be understood as an aesthetic experience, and the popularity of the format would only increase in the decades to follow. This article seeks to trace the rise of the installment form in late Qing and early Republican China, investigate its ties with the contemporaneous cultural production of Shanghai as a metropolitan media center, and demonstrate the effects of its associated aesthetic.
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Katelyn Mathew. "How Young Adult Crime Fiction Influences and Reflects Modern Adolescents." Digital Literature Review 10, no. 1 (April 18, 2023): 108–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.33043/dlr.10.1.108-119.
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When we read crime fiction, we oftentimes expect a cast dominated by adult characters. This is likely a result of decades’ worth of popular crime fiction narratives almost exclusively containing adult characters. The earliest literature in the mystery and crime genre that was targeted towards younger audiences contained teenage detectives and adult criminals because it allowed the younger audiences to read about powerful teenagers overthrowing adult authority while still only engaging in acceptable moral activities in an attempt to decrease or discourage juvenile delinquency. A newer trend among young adult crime fiction novels is the adolescent playing the part of the criminal in addition to the detective. Applying social cognitive theory explored in the study conducted by Black and Barnes to the roles of adolescents in Karen M. McManus’s young adult mystery novel One of Us Is Lying and its sequel One of Us Is Next, this paper will analyze the novels’ adolescent characters to show how adolescent characters in young adult crime fiction reflect their young audiences’ desires to subvert adult hierarchies while still displaying acceptable morals and how they possibly influence their sense of morality.
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Sistiadinita, Sistiadinita. "A MAN IN THE COURT: EXPLORING THE THEME OF JUSTICE IN AND THEN THERE WERE NONE." Jurnal Ilmiah Spectral 7, no. 1 (January 31, 2021): 051–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.47255/spectral.v7i1.69.
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Having to interact with crime fiction which presumably is considered as ephemeral literature, cannot be an excuse to dissolve the theme of justice inside the plots. Agatha Christie as the Mistress of Complication and Mystery, has written series of murder and mystery fiction since the beginning of twentieth century. And Then There Were None or entitled Ten Little Niggers, one of her masterpieces depicts Christie’s unique disposition of turning perception from ‘detective as criminal solver’ into ‘murderer as justice protector’. This paper seeks to analyze how justice is portrayed and challenged by looking at the characters created by Christie as well as making a more thorough analysis of the symbols and dialogues. The result of this paper portrays that the idea of justice, just like human beings, can be flawed or misinterpreted even by the so- called a man in the court.
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Sistiadinita. "A MAN IN THE COURT: EXPLORING THE THEME OF JUSTICE IN AND THEN THERE WERE NONE." Jurnal Ilmiah Spectral 7, no. 1 (January 28, 2021): 051–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.47255/5ff22r80.
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Having to interact with crime fiction which presumably is considered as ephemeral literature, cannot be an excuse to dissolve the theme of justice inside the plots. Agatha Christie as the Mistress of Complication and Mystery, has written series of murder and mystery fiction since the beginning of twentieth century. And Then There Were None or entitled Ten Little Niggers, one of her masterpieces depicts Christie’s unique disposition of turning perception from ‘detective as criminal solver’ into ‘murderer as justice protector’. This paper seeks to analyze how justice is portrayed and challenged by looking at the characters created by Christie as well as making a more thorough analysis of the symbols and dialogues. The result of this paper portrays that the idea of justice, just like human beings, can be flawed or misinterpreted even by the so- called a man in the court.
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Nuñez Sabarís, Xaquín, Ana Cea Álvarez, and Ana Silva Dias. "Task-based approach and gamification applied to Literature: crime fiction and cultural mapping." TEJUELO. Didáctica de la Lengua y la Literatura. Educación 30 (March 28, 2019): 261–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.17398/1988-8430.30.261.
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This paper explores the possibilities of the literary text as an effective instrument to increase communicative and cultural competence through a proposal of a didactic unit which was built on two didactic perspectives: a task-based approach and gamification proceedings. The target group would be composed of Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL) students, who belong to the B2 level according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001).
This didactic unit is based on the crime fiction entitled La playa de los ahogados (2009), which was written by Domingo Villar originally in Galician language (A praia dos afogados). Later on, in 2015 it was adapted to the cinema. This fact allows us to introduce the transmedia dimension (text and audiovisual) into the project narrative. Along this paper geographical aspects of literature will be unveiled, all of which would result in an effective instrument to deepen into the diversity of the Hispanic culture.
The suspense elements (reached out through different resources such as the creation of real scenarios -Vigo and its surroundings-, a crime, a detective and some suspects), encourage reading through exploratory tasks, whose final aim is to stimulate student´s imagination and creative writing abilities.
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Veldhuizen, Vera Nelleke. "The Curious Case of Children's Detective Fiction: Analysing the Adaptation of the Classic Detective Formula for a Child Audience." Crime Fiction Studies 4, no. 2 (September 2023): 162–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/cfs.2023.0096.
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The popularity of the children's detective genre defies an apparent clash between the nature of the genre, specifically its reliance on readerly ability and capital crime, and children's literature's specific group of readers, and thus invites investigation. It is therefore peculiar that children's detective fiction has not enjoyed much scholarship, particularly in the English language. While the detective genre is usually discussed under the umbrella term of ‘crime literature’ when it enjoys an adult readership, in children's literature scholarship it is usually tucked into the categories of the ‘adventure’ or ‘mystery’ story. This article aims to address the relative lack of scholarship on children's detective fiction by analysing how the classic detective is adapted for child readers. 1
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Haugtvedt, Erica. "The Sympathy of Suspense: Gaskell and Braddon’s Slow and Fast Sensation Fiction in Family Magazines." Victorian Periodicals Review 49, no. 1 (2016): 149–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/vpr.2016.0009.
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Nichols, Ryan, Justin Lynn, and Benjamin Grant Purzycki. "Toward a science of science fiction." Scientific Study of Literature 4, no. 1 (September 22, 2014): 25–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ssol.4.1.02nic.
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What is a genre? What distinguishes a genre like science fiction from other genres? We convert texts to data and answer these questions by demonstrating a new method of quantitative literary analysis. We state and test directional hypotheses about contents of texts across the science fiction, mystery, and fantasy genres using psychometrically validated word categories from the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. We also recruit the work of traditional genre theorists in order to test humanists’ interpretations of genre. Since Darko Suvin’s theory is among the few testable definitions of science fiction given by literary scholars, we operationalize and test it. Our project works toward developing a model of science fiction, and introduces a new method for the interdisciplinary study of literature in which interpretations of literary scholars can be put to the test.
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Bulla, Irene. "Negative Language and Apophatic Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Fantastic Literature." Genre 56, no. 3 (December 1, 2023): 265–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00166928-10779291.
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Abstract This article analyzes the rhetoric of nineteenth-century fantastic fiction in order to situate the genre within the intellectual tradition of apophatic, or self-negating, discourse. Through a reading of Fitz-James O'Brien's “What Was It? A Mystery” (1859) and Ambrose Bierce's “The Damned Thing” (1893), two short stories that feature the same kind of supernatural phenomenon (a material ghost), the essay argues that apophasis can be used as a key to understand not only the rhetorical fabric of the fantastic genre but also its tropes and themes and its larger epistemological preoccupations.
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Beck, J. "DANIEL CORDLE. States of Suspense: The Nuclear Age, Postmodernism and United States Fiction and Prose." Review of English Studies 61, no. 252 (October 8, 2010): 838–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/res/hgp094.
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Patronnikova, Yulia S. "Emilio De Marchi’s Novel “The Priest’s Hat”: the Origins of Italian Giallo." Studia Litterarum 7, no. 1 (2022): 146–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.22455/2500-4247-2022-7-1-146-169.
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The paper examines Emilio De Marchi’s novel “The priest’s hat” (1888) as a precursor of detective fiction in Italy. Influenced by Dostoevsky and the French tradition (Gaborio) with its attention to characters’ psychology, De Marchi tells the story of “crime and punishment” that contains crucial elements of detective fiction. The plot revolves around the priest’s murder. The only evidence, his hat, determines how the detective story unfolds — it introduces the mystery, hints at the crime, and sparks the investigation. The case is officially led by the investigating judge. The story also contains untypical genre elements: not fully developed character of the detective (whose function is performed by several characters); the absence of the mystery as to who is the criminal; the investigation’s secondary role; and, most importantly, it’s resolution in a psychological way. De Marchi’s focus is placed on the inner conflict of the perpetrator. The guilt makes the hero lose his mind and at the case’s hearings he unwittingly confesses that he is the murderer. The justice is restored, but the crucial role is played not by human ingenuity (as in a typical detective story) but by the fate: the supreme force prevents the perpetrator from getting away with the crime.
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Rowland, Susan. "Murder Most Fair: The Appeal of Mystery Fiction by Michael Cohen (review)." Modern Language Review 97, no. 4 (October 2002): 928–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/mlr.2002.a828440.
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Ivanović, Dušan B. "READING DOYLE’S „THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES“ THROUGH THE PRISM OF THE GOTHIC GENRE." Nasledje Kragujevac XX, no. 55 (2023): 135–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.46793/naskg2355.135i.
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The exploitation of Gothic elements in detective fiction was long regarded as a skillful way to create an atmosphere of suspense and mystery. However, writers have often relied on the power of the Gothic not only to intrigue and unsettle the reader, but also, more importantly, to direct attention to complex taboo topics of their time. This essen- tial function of the Gothic can be identified in Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, which alludes to many delicate issues of the fin-de-siècle British society, including violence, mental illness, and criminality. These phenomena were often exam- ined by late Victorians in the light of degeneration theory, which held that abnormal forms of behavior were signs of bad heredity and bio- logical regression. Thus, this paper investigates whether degeneration theory played a role in Doyle’s characterization of the novel’s criminal antagonist Jack Stapleton by focusing on how his appearance, behavior, and actions are represented in the text. It is argued that Doyle delib- erately uses the Gothic motif of duality to disperse the illusion of a clear boundary between the civilized “self” and the barbaric “other,” thereby implicitly stressing the complexity of human nature. Accordingly, the analysis, which rests on Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, reveals that Stapleton’s moral decay should not be read as an indicator of his hereditary predisposition toward crime but rather as a result of mental tensions that he fails to control.
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Singh, Raj Kishor. "Symbology and Codes in Dan Brown’s Origin." Molung Educational Frontier 14 (July 22, 2024): 242–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/mef.v14i01.67923.
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This paper explores the intricate web of symbology and codes found within Dan Brown's gripping novel, Origin. As a renowned master of blending history, art, science and religion, Brown weaves a tale that captivates readers with a labyrinth of symbols and enigmatic ciphers. Through an analysis of key elements in the narrative, this study aims to shed light on the significance of symbolism and cryptographic puzzles as essential devices in the plot's development. Drawing upon Brown's signature writing style, the paper examines the role of religious symbology, ancient texts and iconic art and architecture, intertwining them with scientific theories to craft a compelling narrative. The central focus lies in the protagonist, Robert Langdon, a symbologist, whose expertise in languages and linguistics plays a pivotal role in deciphering messages and solving the mystery at hand. Jean Moréas' Symbolist Manifesto (1886) is a foundational text in the development of literary symbolism. In this manifesto, Moréas emphasized the importance of symbolism in art and literature, advocating for a departure from naturalism and realism. He proposed that artists should focus on conveying emotions and ideas through symbols, rather than direct representation. Applying Moréas' theory of symbolism, the researcher analyzes how Dan Brown employs symbols and codes as key elements in Origin. By analyzing the relationship between language and technological innovation, the study aims to unveil how these elements converge to heighten the intrigue and suspense in the novel. It delves into the significance of linguistic techniques and cryptic passages, as tools for building suspense and enriching the reading experience. Langdon reveals meanings and ideas inherent in symbols and codes and demystifies the concepts- "Where do we come from?" and "Where are we going?"
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Jewusiak, Jacob. "SUSPENSEFUL SPECULATION AND THE PLEASURE OF WAITING INLITTLE DORRIT." Victorian Literature and Culture 44, no. 2 (May 10, 2016): 279–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1060150315000625.
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“Suspend it all,” writes Charles Dickens in the ninth number plan for his novelLittle Dorrit(“Working Notes” 207). Referring to the thirtieth chapter, in which Blandois – formerly Rigaud – arrives on the doorstep of Mrs. Clennam's house, this phrase aptly describes how much the chapter moves the plot forward. Mysteries are gestured toward, but the stakes of the mystery are left blank. Rigaud shows surprise upon seeing Flintwinch, but such surprise is inexplicable until we learn at the end of the novel that Rigaud has met Flintwinch's twin brother abroad. We learn more about the mysterious watch that the dying Mr. Clennam bequeathed to his wife, but not much more than the meaning of the letters “D.N.F.” inscribed within it: “Do not forget.” Dickens suspends so much from the reader that it is hard to feel suspense about anything, a fact that is amplified by Rigaud's insistence on “Secrets!” that can be read as a meta-commentary on the chapter itself: “I say there are secrets in all families,” he tells Flintwinch, adding that the house is “so mysterious” (381–82; bk.1, ch. 30).
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Manià, Kirby. "“Translated from the dead”: The legibility of violence in Ivan Vladislavić’s101 Detectives." Journal of Commonwealth Literature 55, no. 1 (August 2, 2018): 61–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0021989418787334.
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In light of the contemporary popularity of crime fiction, true crime, and crime television, avid consumers of these kinds of narratives like to think of themselves as amateur detectives — schooled in the discourse of observation and deduction. Readers of crime fiction become accustomed to a kind of formula, comforted in the knowledge that the mystery will be resolved and the perpetrator apprehended. However, this article investigates how a number of stories in Ivan Vladislavić’s 101 Detectives challenge the conventions of legibility in representing crime in post-apartheid South Africa. The mediations of language, reading, and writing as modes of detection are shown in these short stories to come up short. Instead, and through the stylistic and formalistic frame provided by the anti-detective genre, acts of detection are defeated, closure is deferred, and order is not restored. Writing crime and violence reveals a matrix of structural violences in the postcolony, experiences that cannot be “translated from the dead”. The article argues that while violence and crime are not unrepresentable per se, the degree to which they can be “managed” or “contained” by language or fiction is limited.
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Murdoch, B. "Murder, Manners, Mystery. Reflections on Faith in Contemporary Detective Fiction. By Peter C. Erb." Literature and Theology 22, no. 2 (December 3, 2007): 246–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/litthe/frn019.
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Kuzmičová, Anežka, Anne Mangen, Hildegunn Støle, and Anne Charlotte Begnum. "Literature and readers’ empathy: A qualitative text manipulation study." Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 26, no. 2 (May 2017): 137–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0963947017704729.
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The alleged crisis of the humanities is currently fueling renewed interest in the affective benefits of literary reading. Several quantitative studies have shown a positive correlation between literary reading and empathy. However, the literary nature of the stimuli used in these studies has not been defined at a more detailed, stylistic level. In order to explore the stylistic underpinnings of the hypothesized link between literariness and empathy, we conducted a qualitative experiment in which the degree of stylistic foregrounding was manipulated. Subjects ( N = 37) read versions of Katherine Mansfield’s “The Fly,” a short story rich in foregrounding, while marking striking and evocative passages of their choosing. Afterwards, they were asked to select three markings and elaborate on their experiences in writing. One group read the original story, while the other read a ‘non-literary’ version, produced by an established author of suspense fiction for young adults, where stylistic foregrounding was reduced. We found that the non-literary version elicited significantly more ( p < 0.01) explicitly empathic responses than the original story. This finding stands in contradiction to widely accepted assumptions in recent research, but can be assimilated in alternative models of literariness and affect in literary reading. We present an analysis of the data with a view to offering more than one interpretation of the observed effects of stylistic foregrounding.
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Effron, Malcah. "Reshaping Reality: Mystery Fiction Literary Tourism and Its Effect on Real‐World Spaces." Journal of Popular Culture 54, no. 6 (November 29, 2021): 1371–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jpcu.13087.
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West, Elliott. "Afterword." Pacific Historical Review 72, no. 3 (August 1, 2003): 421–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/phr.2003.72.3.421.
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This comment considers the essays by David Wrobel, Krista Comer, and Blake Allmendinger in relationship to each other. Far from being merely regional, late twentieth-century Western literature has produced "conversations" about the American experience and is valuable in its own right. Wrobel emphasizes the overlapping, rather than segmented, versions of the frontier of the Western literary tradition, while Comer focuses on the distinctive perspective of Generation X through genre fiction about modern Los Angeles; similar insights can be gained through close readings of the mystery genre. Finally, Allmendinger provides hints of what historians and literary critics can offer to, and learn from, each other in studying twentieth-century Western literature.
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Frenkel, Ronit. "Pleasure as genre: popular fiction, South African chick-lit and Nthikeng Mohlele's Pleasure." Feminist Theory 20, no. 2 (February 21, 2019): 171–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1464700119831537.
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The success of popular women's fiction requires a mode of analysis that is able to reveal the patterns across this category in order to better understand the appeal of these books. Popular fiction, like chick-lit, can be contradictorily framed as simultaneously constituting one, as well as many genres, if a genre is the codification of discursive properties. It may consist of romances, thrillers, romantic suspense and so forth in terms of its discursive properties, but popular women's fiction will also have a pattern of similarity that cuts across these forms – that similarity, I will suggest, lies in the idea of pleasure as a genre of affect that ties various popular fictions together, thereby acting as a type of imperial genre. Pleasure is so ubiquitous and so diverse across the multiple forms that constitute popular women's fiction that I argue it has become a genre in itself. This is, however, not a genre that limits itself to one particular stylistic form, but rather, as a dynamic social construct, it has become a genre of affect that invokes feelings of pleasure. Nthikeng Mohlele's most recent novel, Pleasure, exemplifies the applicability and plasticity of the concept of pleasure, allowing me to examine this work as a type of fictionalised theory which I then apply to South African chick-lit texts: the Trinity series by Fiona Snyckers and Happiness Is a Four-Letter Word by Cynthia Jele. Mohiele's expansive theorisation of pleasure is inherently local in that it is depicted at the level of experience and imagination; yet it is simultaneously macro and global in the connections made to deeply political circuits of identity-based oppressions and structural inequalities. Mohlele reveals the mobility of pleasure as a genre that offers an opportunity to think through the circuits that connect popular fiction through the lens of African literature.
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Morgan, Ceri. "Québec’s new regional fiction: Louise Penny and Johanne Seymour." British Journal of Canadian Studies: Volume 33, Issue 2 33, no. 2 (September 1, 2021): 225–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.3828/bjcs.2021.15.
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Louise Penny’s Still Life (2005) and Johanne Seymour’s Le Cri du cerf (2005) are both murder mysteries set in the Eastern Townships, in south-eastern and south-central Québec. Much of the region borders the United States. To varying degrees, the border makes its presence felt in the novels by Penny and Seymour, along with other landmarks familiar to domestic audiences. This article argues that the apparent situatedness of the texts is, however, challenged by their adherence to the formal conventions of the murder mystery and associated subgenres. In so doing, it claims that Still Life and Le Cri du cerf foster multi-layered readings which, in bringing together the hyper-local and the international, prompt a reconsideration of understandings of regional fiction.