Reading Fiction: Opening the Text
Apr 2001 · Bloomsbury Publishing
Ebook
180
Pages
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
In what ways does the opening of a novel relate to the narrative that unfolds from it? What are the different approaches to close reading a page of prose fiction? How does reading a text for a second time affect our understanding of the significance of its opening?
In this unique book, Peter Childs discusses the opening lines of 24 widely-studied literary texts from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. These analyses amount to both an overview of modes of fiction over the last 300 years and also a guide to techniques of close reading. The extracts are taken from the work of novelists ranging from Jane Austen to Salman Rushdie. This stimulating and illuminating book will be a useful text for undergraduates studying the novel and involved in critical appreciation and close textual analysis.
Texts discussed: Robinson Crusoe, Tristram Shandy, Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations, Silas Marner, Tess of the D'urbervilles, The Turn of the Screw, Heart of Darkness, The Good Soldier, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Life and Death of Harriet Frean, A Passage to India, Mrs Dalloway, Brave New World, The Road to Wigan Pier, Goodbye to Berlin, Under the Volcano, Wide Sargasso Sea, The Bloody Chamber, Shame and The Buddha of Suburbia.
In this unique book, Peter Childs discusses the opening lines of 24 widely-studied literary texts from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. These analyses amount to both an overview of modes of fiction over the last 300 years and also a guide to techniques of close reading. The extracts are taken from the work of novelists ranging from Jane Austen to Salman Rushdie. This stimulating and illuminating book will be a useful text for undergraduates studying the novel and involved in critical appreciation and close textual analysis.
Texts discussed: Robinson Crusoe, Tristram Shandy, Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations, Silas Marner, Tess of the D'urbervilles, The Turn of the Screw, Heart of Darkness, The Good Soldier, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Life and Death of Harriet Frean, A Passage to India, Mrs Dalloway, Brave New World, The Road to Wigan Pier, Goodbye to Berlin, Under the Volcano, Wide Sargasso Sea, The Bloody Chamber, Shame and The Buddha of Suburbia.
About the author
PETER CHILDS is Senior Lecturer in English at Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
