Słowa kluczowe

novel |antinovel |experimental literature |fragmentary writing |metafiction

Streszczenie

The antinovel is a niche genre which positions itself radically and emphatically against what might be called the conventional novel. It chooses to dispense with such novelistic devices as linear plot, cause-and-effect relation of events, richly delineated setting, verisimilitude and characterisation. Instead, the antinovel favours anti-mimetic strategies, fragmentation, digression and repetition. This article examines the generic status of David Markson’s tetralogy composed of Reader’s Block (1996), This Is Not a Novel (2001), Vanishing Point (2004) and The Last Novel (2007). Although each book contains the word “novel” either in its title or subtitle, a case is made for classifying them all as antinovels as theorized by Jean-Paul Sartre, J. A. Cuddon, M. H. Abrams and others. A critical and historical introduction to the genre is followed by a commentary on the thematic and formal structure of the tetralogy and a detailed consideration of its antinovelistic elements – the renunciation of plot and character, the prominence of metafiction, and fragmentary construction.

Słowa kluczowe

transgression |cyberstalking |hypertext |writing technologies |virus

Streszczenie

Drawing upon Mary Douglas’s anthropological work Purity and Danger, Jay David Bolter’s Writing Space: Computers,Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print, and (to a lesser extent) Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto,” the article analyses the form and authorship of James Lasdun’s 2013 memoir Give Me Everything You Have. On Being Stalked. The book is Lasdun’s account of his experience of being cyberstalked by his former female student.The article proposes that the memoir be read as a combination of two kinds of texts, indeed a fusion of two writing technologies (the print/book technology and the digital technology) resulting from a collision – or even an involuntary “collaboration” (a concept considered on the basis of its discussion by George P. Landow in his Hypertext 3.0) – of two very different (co-)authors: a more traditional author who is a digital “alien” and a disembodied and viral cyberstalker (a self-proclaimed “verbal terrorist”) who is a native-like digital immigrant. The article examines the book’s hypertextual qualities, proposing that it takes a step further in comparison to the protohypertextuality of experimental authors such as Sterne, Joyce, Borges and Calvino by actually including electronic text within its paper borders – which, in fact, become opened up as a result.

Słowa kluczowe

subjectivity |Maurice Blanchot |Samuel Beckett |modernism |voice |philosophy

Streszczenie

The question of who speaks in Beckett’s work is one that has intrigued critics ranging from Maurice Blanchot do Jacques Derrida. This undecidibility stems predominantly from a modernist poetics characterized by authorial neutrality, the effect of which is a floating, anchorless and disseminated subject that resists articulation and has no definite point of origin. The speaking voice, therefore, becomes the proxy for this subject, itself a spectral entity which incessantly presents the subject despite its desire for silence. The aim of this article is to examine subjectivity in Beckett’s fiction, especially the third part of his trilogy, The Unnamable, in reference to the agency of the voice as its defined in Maurice Blanchot’s concept of the neutral voice. Blanchot’s theory of neutrality gives insight into the paradoxical nature of subjectivity in Beckett’s fiction by foregrounding the irresolvable aporetics undermining the objective/subjective dualism at the heart of Western metaphysics.

Słowa kluczowe

Brian Friel |the Other |Jacques Derrida |Edward Said |binary oppositions

Streszczenie

Dancing at Lughnasa by Irish playwright Brian Friel is a play marked by the notion of the Other. In the present article this concept is understood in two ways as either an inferior term in each of the binary oppositions that the drama is rich in or as a notion denoting an unfamiliar, alien quality that is very different from the typical Western point of view. The former means of reading the term can be elaborated on with the use of the Derridean concept of logocentrism which leads to a display of various binary terms present in the play. The latter understanding of the term “the Other” comes from Edward Said’s reading of “the Orient” as the Other for the Occident. These two renderings of the term lead to the conclusion that the Other is omnipresent in the play and that the understanding of this concept facilitates the decoding of the message conveyed by the play.

Słowa kluczowe

music |film adaptation |Thomas Hardy |Thomas Vinterberg |Far from the Madding Crowd

Streszczenie

This article discusses the use of musical elements in Thomas Hardy’s novel Far from the Madding Crowd and its 2015 Thomas Vinterberg adaptation of the same title. First of all, the author discusses the use of music in the novel, both in its linguistic composition and actual music playing. The idea is to present not only Hardy’s knowledge of and deep sensitivity towards various kinds of music, but also to show the complexity and symbolism of music in the novel. The second part of this article is devoted to an analysis of the musical elements in the latest film adaptation. Here, the author’s main goal is to present the choice of music and to prove by comparison with the novel that the filmmakers recognised the richness and potential of the music within Hardy’s work and applied that musical knowledge in the film without impoverishing its symbolic value.

Słowa kluczowe

Irish |Immigration |father figure |assimilation |masculinity

Streszczenie

The importance of the father figure seems to be one of the most ubiquitous motifs used in the portrayal of the Irish in American cinema, as it is present in films belonging to various genres. The function of the motifis related directly to the development of the main character’s masculine identity, usually presented within the context of violence. As mother figures are usually absent from the representation of the Irish in contemporary Hollywood, it is the father figure that has the most profound impact on the character’s social and emotional development. The present article focuses on the role of the father figure in the construction of the main Irish characters in selected contemporary American films. On the basis of the explicit, implicit and symptomatic meaning produced by the analyzed pictures, it is argued that the studied productions reflect the process of the Irish immigrants’ assimilation into American culture.