Title: Novel arguments
First published: 1995
Description: Novel arguments argues that innovative fiction - by which is meant writing that has been variously labeled postmodern, metafictional, experimental - extends our ways of thinking about the world, and rejects the critical consensus that, under the rubrics of postmodernism and metafiction, homogenizes this fiction as autonomous and self-absorbed. Play, self-consciousness, and immanence - supposed symptoms of innovative fiction's autonomy - are here reconsidered as integral to its means of engagement.

The book advances a concept of the "argument" of fiction as a construct wedding structure and content into a highly evolved and expressive experimental form. Close readings of five important innovative novels by Donald Barthelme, Ishmael Reed, Robert Coover, Walter Abish, and Kathy Acker show how they articulate matters of substance, social engagement, and ideological currency by virtue of the act of innovation.

Walsh deftly argues for a new understanding of fictional cognition at the theoretical level, and, in an act of great critical creativity, discards altogether the flattening totalities of received postmodern formulations.
Subjects: American Experimental fiction, American fiction, Experimental fiction, American, Fiction, History and criticism, Technique, Fiction, technique, American fiction, history and criticism, 20th century, Roman américain, Histoire et critique, Roman expérimental américain, Roman, Experimenteller Roman, Innovation, Literarische Technik, Experimentele fictie, Amerikaans, Roman expérimental, American fiction--history and criticism, American fiction--20th century--history and criticism, Experimental fiction--history and criticism, Experimental fiction--united states--history and criticism, Fiction--technique, Ps374.e95 w35 1995, 813/.5409, Experimental fiction
Time periods: 20th century
LC classification: PS374.E95 W35 1995