(Download) "Doing Things with Realism: The Novels of 1989 (Critical Essay)" by JNZL: Journal of New Zealand Literature " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Doing Things with Realism: The Novels of 1989 (Critical Essay)
- Author : JNZL: Journal of New Zealand Literature
- Release Date : January 01, 1991
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 218 KB
Description
In surveying the novels of 1988, I said that we were 'in the midst of a period of considerable accomplishment', (1) and I pointed to achievements in a variety of modes from the realist to the postmodern. This situation continued in 1989, although the year was more one of consolidation, as some publishers seemed to be saving their big novels for the sesquicentennial year of 1990, which saw a rich flowering of major novels. Nonetheless the year was marked by some significant novels by established writers and some auspicious debuts. The trend towards postmodern metafiction evident in 1988 was not so strong, however. Rather, the novels seem to bear out Mark Williams' observation in Leaving the Highway: Six Contemporary New Zealand Novelists that 'the realist tradition itself' is being transformed 'not into some other thing ... but into a richer version of its own possibilities'. (2) Most of these novels are either straight realism or involve a mix of realism with another mode, impressionism or postmodernism. The discussion that follows begins with predominantly realist novels and then moves out from that centre in the directions of impressionism and postmodernism. VARIETIES OF REALISM