The Distinction of Fiction
Offers some very fine analysis of a range of narratives from Freud's case histories to Tolstoy'sWar and Peace... An important contribution to narrative theory and a salutary intervention in the debate about the relation between fiction and nonfiction... Cohn argues with clarity, learning, and patient logic.(James PhelanModern Fiction Studies)The first chapter, which anatomizes the various meanings of the term 'fiction' in critical discourse, shows Cohn at her best, scrupulously and methodically distinguishing between shifting and rival senses of the term 'fiction.'.(Brian RichardsonNovel)[T]his collection offers a convenient way of sampling the ideas of a well respected critic who has had substantial and lasting impact on narratological studies.(Hollie Markland HarderFrench Review)Dorrit Cohn demolishes, with remorseless and elegant clarity, the view, fashionable among some literary theorists, that there is ultimately no distinction between historical and fictional narrative.(Michael BellYearbook of English Studies)Elegantly written and demonstrates an impressive knowledge of scholarship in the theoretical field of narratology.(Amy J. EliasJournal of English and Germanic Philology)The Distinction of Fictionwill [become] required reading for all those interested in the formal workings of narrative... Readers willing to trace and retrace the rigorous intricacies of Cohn's presentation will find that the effort leads to ample and even exhilarating rewards.(Patrick O'NeillSeminar)Careful and lucid theoretical work in narratology.(Ursula MahlendorfColloquia Germanica)Dorrit Cohn provides us with a comprehensive survey of the controversy about the relation between factual and fictional narration, and shows how it might be resolved. As a reference-point (and perhaps a lightning-rod) for future discussion, the book will be required reading for narratologists, and will attract the attention of all those who teach fiction.(Wallace MartinUniversity of Toledo, author ofRecent Theories of Narrativeand editor ofThe Yale Critics: Deconstruction in America)