What do you think?
Rate this book
Narralogues: Truth in Fiction (Margins of Literature
In Narralogues, Ronald Sukenick continues his important and original contributions to the cutting edge of contemporary fiction. Here he proposes fiction as a medium for telling the truth, while recognizing that the implicit contradiction in these terms is more than cheap paradox. The "narralogues," simultaneously narrative and argument, story and rhetorical pleading, exemplify and argue for fiction as persuasion in a sequence that moves from Socratic dialogue to outright narrative, using throughout all the traditional techniques of fiction, from comedy and irony to suspense and the erotic.
Hardcover
First published January 6, 2000
25 people want to read
About the author
Ronald Sukenick
32 books32 followersRonald Sukenick was an American writer and literary theorist.
Sukenick studied at Cornell University, and wrote his doctoral thesis on Wallace Stevens, at Brandeis University.
After Roland Barthes announced the "death of the author", Sukenick carried the metaphor even further in "the death of the novel". He drew up a list of what is missing: reality doesn't exist, nor time or personality. He was widely recognized as a controversial writer who, frequently humorously, questioned and rejected the conventions of traditional fiction-writing. In novels, short stories, literary criticism and history, he often used himself, family members or friends as characters, sometimes quoting them in tape-recorded conversations. He did stints as writer in residence at Cornell University, the University of California, Irvine, and Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. But his books were never best-sellers. Sukenick once commented that he had “only forty fans, but they’re all fanatics.”
He referred to his career as a university professor as his "day job". He taught at Brandeis University, Hofstra University, City College of the City University of New York, Sarah Lawrence College, Cornell University, the State University of New York (Buffalo), and l'Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier, France. His most prolonged teaching career was at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he was professor of English from 1975-1999.
He was actively committed to publishing and promoting the writing of other unconventional writers. He was founder and publisher of American Book Review, and a founder of The Fiction Collective (now Fiction Collective Two). Sukenick was chairman of the Coordinating Council of Little magazines, and on the executive council of the Modern Language Association and the National Book Critics Circle.
Sukenick studied at Cornell University, and wrote his doctoral thesis on Wallace Stevens, at Brandeis University.
After Roland Barthes announced the "death of the author", Sukenick carried the metaphor even further in "the death of the novel". He drew up a list of what is missing: reality doesn't exist, nor time or personality. He was widely recognized as a controversial writer who, frequently humorously, questioned and rejected the conventions of traditional fiction-writing. In novels, short stories, literary criticism and history, he often used himself, family members or friends as characters, sometimes quoting them in tape-recorded conversations. He did stints as writer in residence at Cornell University, the University of California, Irvine, and Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. But his books were never best-sellers. Sukenick once commented that he had “only forty fans, but they’re all fanatics.”
He referred to his career as a university professor as his "day job". He taught at Brandeis University, Hofstra University, City College of the City University of New York, Sarah Lawrence College, Cornell University, the State University of New York (Buffalo), and l'Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier, France. His most prolonged teaching career was at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he was professor of English from 1975-1999.
He was actively committed to publishing and promoting the writing of other unconventional writers. He was founder and publisher of American Book Review, and a founder of The Fiction Collective (now Fiction Collective Two). Sukenick was chairman of the Coordinating Council of Little magazines, and on the executive council of the Modern Language Association and the National Book Critics Circle.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 22, 2010
This is a stellar book. I very much enjoyed the experiment of turning fiction into argument. Too bad I didn't read this two years ago, I might have been able to make a case to teach fiction in my comp classes afterall.
January 11, 2019
Definitely worth a read if one is looking for different ways to read and thing about fiction. I know this is a very vague description, perhaps I'll expound later. I'm just getting back to this review thing.
January 15, 2014
I didn't think I would enjoy this book, but I actually did. I still make references to it in my speech, like, "It's very sutter, so very sutter."
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews