Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics

Rating:
Summary: Introduction to Narratology
Review: Rimmon-Kenan's introduction to narratology possesses that rare quality of clarity and simplicity which lulls the reader into believing that he or she actually intuited it all beforehand. In a field as theoretical and complex as narratology, such an introduction is a gem. Beware of chapter 2, though. It delves too deeply into structuralism without clarifying sufficiently the terms that convey its concepts. In fact, Rimmon-Kenan herself did not entirely write this chapter. She relied "heavily on a draft prepared by" an early collaborator on the book, Moshe Ron, who then had to retire from the project. Rimmon-Kenan says that "the general conception, the substance, the order of the items, and the style have undergone serious changes, so that...Ron can no longer be held responsible for the weaknesses" (p. 134 n. 1). The sharp contrast in style with the rest of the book-for the worse-testifies to the overlaid character of this chapter and makes one wish she had rewritten it from scratch. Still, the book provides a fine introduction even without that chapter. The selectively annotated, refreshingly brief but substantive bibliography offers a rare treat.

Rating:
Summary: A great introductory work
Review: Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan's work is a testament to the ever-increasing interest in the field of literary criticism. In it, she outlines the basic concepts required to define and to 'understand' literature and the study of literature as an academic discipline. Her arguments are well-supported by her many examples taken from narrative authors such as John Dos Passos, James Joyce and Honore' de Balzac. This book should be a standard text for any introductory course in Western literature

Rating:
Summary: Old but still good introduction to narratology
Review: This is a useful introduction to narratology. It is ordered according to Genette's tripartite division into Text, Narration and Story. However, sometimes the same terms are explained in more than one of these fields, causing confusion (for example: characterization). A further and more serious cause of confusion is the treatment of very different schools of analysis, such as Propp and Levi-Strauss, that have very little in common with Genette. In this way the Genettian division makes no sense, and this book would be better served if it would limit its scope to one approach instead of taking them all aboard. The discussion of Genette and related scholars (Prince, Chatman, the Tel Aviv poeticians) itself is quite excellent. That would be worth four stars, but because the book was never updated since its original publication in 1983, it is marked down by one. The bibliography gives a splendid account of all the work done up to 1983, stressing the most important publications with an asterisk.