Home For Fiction - Blog - Page 98 of 149

What Is Literary Fiction: not what You Think It Is

July 11, 2019

literary fiction, literature, reading, reality, symbolism, writing

What is literary fiction? Well, I could offer you a definition – and I will, in a while. But let’s get this out of the way. Literary fiction is probably not what you think it is.

Literary fiction is not a “genre”. Indeed, it is the very opposite of “genre” fiction (we will discuss this, too).

Moreover, literary fiction is not “high-quality” fiction. It can be, of course, but there is mediocre literary fiction, as there is stunningly brilliant genre fiction.

And so, if someone asks you what is literary fiction, how should you reply? Allow me to throw the A-bomb and then we’ll take a closer look: Literary fiction is an aesthetic framework for approaching the human condition.

If you feel confused, worry not. I’ll unpack it for you right away.

(more…)

Death Is a Perspective: from Epicurus to Schopenhauer

July 6, 2019

Philosophy

death, fear, philosophy, subjectivity, time

To say that death is a perspective might at first sound bizarre. The fear of death must be among the most powerful fears humans experience during their life (think about the irony for a second).

Whether that fear is rational or not, it’s something we’ll need to talk about. We also need to ponder on what we mean by “fear of death”. Do we refer to our death or others’? Do we refer to death or dying?

All these are valid questions – albeit, questions most people bypass as too inconvenient. These, too, are parts of the “death is a perspective” thesis. But there’s much more to it.

(more…)

Gothic Immortality in A Christmas Carol

July 2, 2019

Criticism

academia, criticism, Gothic, immortality

Note: the following article on Gothic immortality in A Christmas Carol is a modified excerpt (pp. 63-64) from my doctoral dissertation, “Time is Everything with Him”: The Concept of the Eternal Now in Nineteenth-Century Gothic, which can be downloaded (for free) from the repository of the Tampere University Press. For a list of my other academic publications, see the relevant page on the main website.

(Note: Also take a look at the article on immortality in Bram Stoker’s Dracula)

The complexity of Gothic immortality is apparent in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, which arguably still remains an under-analyzed, deceptively simple text. Perhaps due to the rather jovial mood of the story – and certainly of the implied outcome – certain important Gothic devices can pass unnoticed. That is especially true for issues pertaining to temporality, reality, and immortality.

Gothic Immortality in A Christmas Carol — Gothic immortality in *A Christmas Carol* is about facing that which is beyond representation; death, the ultimate sublime

(more…)