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Berlatsky, Eric. The Real, The True, and the Told: Postmodern Historical Narrative and the Ethics of Representation. Theory and Interpretation of Narrative. Columbus: Ohio State University Libraries, 2011. 
Added by: joachim (1/23/12, 10:45 PM)   
Resource type: Book
Language: en: English
BibTeX citation key: Berlatsky2011a
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Categories: General
Keywords: "Maus", Autobiography, Ethics, Foucault. Michel, History, Memoria, Narratology, Photography, Postmodernism, Representation, Spiegelman. Art, USA
Creators: Berlatsky
Publisher: Ohio State University Libraries (Columbus)
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Abstract
The Real, The True, and The Told: Postmodern Historical Narrative and the Ethics of Representation, by Eric L. Berlatsky, intervenes in contemporary debates over the problems of historical reference in a postmodern age. It does so through an examination of postmodern literary practices and their engagement with the theorization of history. The book looks at the major figures of constructivist historiography and at postmodern fiction (and memoir) that explicitly presents and/or theorizes “history.” It does so in order to suggest that reading such fiction can intervene substantially in debates over historical reference and the parallel discussion of redefining contemporary ethics.
Much theorization in the wake of Hayden White suggests that history is little better than fiction in its professed goal of representing the “truth” of the past, particularly because of its reliance on the narrative form. While postmodern fiction is often read as reflecting and/or repeating such theories, this book argues that, in fact, such fiction proposes alternative models of accurate historical reference, based on models of nonnarrativity. Through a combination of high theory and narrative theory, the book illustrates how the texts examined insist upon the possibility of accessing the real by rejecting narrative as their primary mode of articulation. Among the authors examined closely in The Real, The True, and The Told are Virginia Woolf, Graham Swift, Salman Rushdie, Art Spiegelman, and Milan Kundera.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments (ix)

Introduction: Memory as Forgetting: Historical Reference, Ethics, and Postmodernist Fiction (1)
1. The Pageantry of the Past and the Reflection of the Present: History, Reality, and Feminism in Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts (39)
2. “A Knife Blade Called Now”: Historiography, Narrativity, and the “Here and Now” in Graham Swift’s Waterland (77)
3. “What’s Real and What’s True”: Metaphors, Errata, and the Shadow of the Real in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (109)
4. “It’s Enough Stories”: Truth and Experience in Art Spiegelman’s Maus (145)
Conclusion: Expanding the Field (187)

Notes (197)
Works Cited (217)
Index (237)


Added by: joachim  Last edited by: joachim
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