The Real, the True, and the Told: Postmodern Historical Narrative and the Ethics of Representation

by Eric L. Berlatsky

Overview

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and the Ethics of Representation, by Eric L. Berlatsky, intervenes in contemporary debates over the problems of historical reference in a postmodern age.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 It does so in order to suggest that reading such fiction can intervene substantially in debates over historical reference and the parallel discussion of redefining contemporary ethics.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and/or repeating such theories, this book argues that, in fact, such fiction proposes alternative models of accurate historical reference, based on models of nonnarrativity.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 andnarrative 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814256145
Publisher:	Ohio State University Press
Publication date:	10/09/2020
Series:	THEORY INTERPRETATION NARRATIV
Pages:	266
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Eric L. Berlatsky is associate professor of English at Florida Atlantic University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction Memory as Forgetting: Historical Reference, Ethics, and Postmodernist Fiction 1

Chapter 1 The Pageantry of the Past and the Reflection of the Present: History, Reality, and Feminism in Virginia Woolf's Between the Acts 39

Chapter 2 "A Knife Blade Called Now": Historiography, Narrativity, and the "Here and Now" in Graham Swift's Waterland 77

Chapter 3 "What's Real and What's True": Metaphors, Errata, and the Shadow of the Real in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children 109

Chapter 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