Acts of narrative : textual strategies in modern German fiction / Patrick O'Neill.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

O'Neill applies the principles of structuralist and poststructuralist narratology to a selection of narratives from both modernist and postmodernist German authors: Mann, Kafka, and Hesse, and Canetti, Grass, Johnson, Handke, and Bernhard.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This is the third book by O'Neill (Queens College, Canada) in the "Theory/Culture" series on narrative and narrative theory (after The Comedy of Entropy, 1990, and Fictions of Discourse, 1994). The author analyzes selected prose works of eight major 20th century, German-language authors (Mann, Kafka, Hesse, Canetti, Grass, Johnson, Handke, and Bernhard) from a structuralist and poststructuralist point of view. His formalist approach foregrounds the discourse and stresses the element of play and the role of the reader in creating the fictional text. This method diverges from mainstream German criticism, which is usually historical and content based, and thus offers new perspectives in line with contemporary critical thinking. The scholarship is solid and pleasing to read, and fascinating insights abound. A valuable addition to the postmodernist debate, both inside and outside German literary circles. Upper-division undergraduate through faculty. R. Acker; University of Montana