Fiction

All in a Day’s Work

by Brian Chappell Fiction
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These types of genres are a narratologist’s dream, because one can spend an inordinate amount of time (even in a 190 page book like this one) teasing out the tiniest components of this unfamiliar world.

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Caleb’s Passing

by Brian Chappell Fiction
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The climax of the novel is so mawkish that its downright dismissal of the fraught implications of his “achievement” are extremely troubling.

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The Narratology of LOST: Loops and Privileged Positions

by Brian Chappell Fiction
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LOST generates the final thrust of its narrative through even more privileged positions.

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Stories Within Stories Within Stories Within…

by Brian Chappell Fiction
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Okay! Fine. Tea Obreht is a veritable prodigy, and The Tiger’s Wife is uncannily good. Most (no, all) reviewers, as well as the likes of Colum McCann, TC Boyle, and Ann Patchett, say no less. But this novel is not just good for a twenty-five year old. Most of us would kill to kill it like she does.

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David Foster Wallace’s Open-Ended End Game

by Brian Chappell Fiction
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Wallace over the years was most interested in narratives of suffering. Boredom (so closely linked to the problem of addiction, which he addressed in Infinite Jest) is one such type, and it takes center stage in his last book, an unfinished project published under the title The Pale King.

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Notes on reading David Foster Wallace’s short story “John Billy”

by Daniel Silliman Fiction
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We passed the jars around and unscrewed Minogue’s bootleg lids.
We was silent at our table, expected T. Rex dead, or at least twisted, traumatized, Nunn-struck.
‘Hi,’ he said.

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Indie Bookstores: Kramerbooks

by Brian Chappell Fiction
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I indulge fantasies of ownership, lament the limited capacity of my wallet and shelf space to accommodate all the books I want. But I gird myself and leave with nothing, happy to have looked, touched, but saved myself again.

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Sentimentality vs. Feeling

by Joe Weil Aesthetics
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True feeling has the force of grace; sentimentality has the stench of morals. The word “should” and “must” cling to its fat cherubic legs. Half comprised of self regard, and the other half a mixture of cliche, the sentimental is close to the feigned regard of the funeral director: appropriate, and grave, but with one eye on the itemized bill.

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