Telling in Henry James
Subtitle: the web of experience and the forms of reality
By: Lynda Zwinger
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
Published: 2015
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 140
ISBN-13: 9781501308987; 9781501309007; 9781501308994
Subjects: LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General; Narration (Rhetoric); LITERARY CRITICISM / General; Language and languages in literature; Criticism and interpretation; LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory
Description: "Telling in Henry James argues that James's contribution to narrative and narrative theories is a lifelong exploration of how to "tell," but not, as Douglas has it in "The Turn of the Screw" in any "literal, vulgar way." James's fiction offers multiple, and often contradictory, reading (in)directions.  Zwinger's overarching contention is that the telling detail is that which cannot be accounted for with any single critical or theoretical lens-that reading James is in some real sense a reading of the disquietingly inassimilable "fictional machinery."  The analyses offered by each of the six chapters are grounded in close reading and focused on oddments-textual equivalents to the "particles" James describes as caught in a silken spider web, in a famous analogy used in "The Art of Fiction" to describe the kind of "consciousness" James wants his fiction to present to the reader. Telling in Henry James attends to the sheer fun of James's wit and verbal dexterity, to the cognitive tune-up offered by the complexities and nuances of his precise and rhythmic syntax, and to the complex and contradictory contrapuntal impact of the language on the page, tongue, and ear"--

"Explores via close readings the elements of James's fiction that relate to narrative theories and the acting of telling"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 131-135) and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note:; title: Introduction; title: Chapter 1. Henry James On Telling; title: Chapter 2. "A foreigner of some sort" in the House of Fiction of The Europeans; title: Chapter 3. Telling On "Henry James" Morganizing the Body of "The Pupil"; title: Chapter 4. The Silver Clue Fish in The Golden Bowl; title: Chapter 5. "I was to have known myself" in the Vestibule of "The Jolly Corner"; title: Chapter 6. Telling On Henry James; title: Bibliography; title: Index.