Recent Posts - page 106
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Analysis of James Dickey’s Novels
James Dickey’s (1923-1997) novels Deliverance and Alnilam were published seventeen years apart, and the chronological separation parallels the levels of difference in their content and style. Deliverance, written by Dickey when he was in his forties, is more conventional in… Read More ›
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Analysis of Philip K. Dick’s Novels
Philip K. Dick’s novels are, without exception, distinctive in style and theme. Their style may be characterized relatively easily: Dick writes clearly and plainly and is a master of realistic dialogue. He is, however, also a master of the… Read More ›
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Analysis of Don DeLillo’s Novels
What little there is of traditional narrative structure in a Don DeLillo (1936- ) novel appears to serve principally as a vehicle for introspective meanderings, a thin framework for the knotting together of the author’s preoccupations about life and the… Read More ›
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Analysis of Samuel R. Delany’s Novels
The great twentieth century poet T. S. Eliot remarked that a poet’s criticism of other writers often reveals as much or more about that poet’s own work as about that of the writers being discussed. This observation certainly holds true… Read More ›
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Analysis of Robertson Davies’ Novels
At the core of Robertson Davies’ (1913-1995) novels is a sense of humor that reduces pompous institutional values to a refreshing individuality. Interplays of the formal with the specific—officious academia versus lovable satyr-professor, self-important charitable foundation versus reclusive forger-artist, elaborately… Read More ›
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Analysis of Stephen Crane’s Novels
As one of the Impressionist writers—Conrad called him “The Impressionist”— Stephen Crane (1871-1900) was among the first to express in writing a new way of looking at the world. A pivotal movement in the history of ideas, Impressionism grew out… Read More ›
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Analysis of Robert Coover’s Novels
In Robert Coover’s work, humanity is presented not as the center of the universe, the purpose of creation, but, instead, as the center of the fictions it itself creates to explain its existence. Only when people learn the crucial difference… Read More ›
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Analysis of James Fenimore Cooper’s Novels
James Fenimore Cooper (1789 –1851) was a historian of America. His novels span American history, dramatizing central events from Columbus’s discovery (Mercedes of Castile) through the French and Indian Wars and the early settlement (the Leatherstocking Tales) to the Revolution… Read More ›
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Analysis of Kate Chopin’s Novels
When Kate Chopin (1850–1904) began to publish, local-color writing, which came into being after the Civil War and crested during the 1880’s, had already been established. Bret Harte and Mark Twain had created a special ambience for their fiction in… Read More ›
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Analysis of John Cheever’s Novels
In a literary period that witnessed the exhaustion of literature, wholesale formal experimentation, a general distrust of language, the death of the novel, and the blurring of the lines separating fiction and play, mainstream art and the avantgarde, John Cheever… Read More ›
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Analysis of Raymond Chandler’s Novels
Many people who have never read a single word of Raymond Chandler’s (1888–1959) recognize the name of his fictional hero Philip Marlowe. This recognition results in part from the wide exposure and frequent dilution Chandler’s work has received in media… Read More ›
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Analysis of Willa Cather’s Novels
Willa Cather (1873—1947) was a prolific American novelist noted for her portrayals of the settlers and frontier life on the American plains. She once said in an interview that the Nebraska landscape was “the happiness and the curse” of her… Read More ›
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Analysis of Truman Capote’s Novels
The pattern of Truman Capote’s 1(924 – 1984) career suggests a divided allegiance to two different, even opposing literary forms—objective realism and romance. Capote’s earliest fiction belongs primarily to the imagination of romance. It is intense, wondrously evocative, subjective; in place… Read More ›
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Analysis of George Washington Cable’s Novels
Although George Washington Cable’s (1844 – 1925) reputation rests primarily on one collection of short stories and two pieces of longer fiction, his total output includes twenty-two books. For an understanding of Cable as a writer of fiction, one should… Read More ›
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Analysis of Octavia E. Butler’s Novels
Octavia E. Butler presented a version of humanity as a congenitally flawed species, possibly doomed to destroy itself because it is both intelligent and hierarchical. In this sense, her work does not follow the lead of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series… Read More ›
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Analysis of William S. Burroughs’s Novels
William S. Burroughs (1914 – 1997) did not begin writing seriously until 1950, although he had unsuccessfully submitted a story titled “Twilight’s Last Gleaming” to Esquire in 1938. His first novelistic effort, Queer, which deals with homosexuality, was not published… Read More ›
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Analysis of Richard Brautigan’s Novels
Short-story writer, novelist, and poet, Richard Brautigan (1935 – 1984) created a stream of works that resist simple categories—in fact, defy categorization altogether. Much of his popularity can be attributed to his peculiar style, his unconventional plots, simple language, and… Read More ›
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Analysis of Pearl S. Buck’s Novels
An overwhelmingly prolific writer, Pearl S. Buck’s (1892-1973) reputation for excellence as a writer of fiction rests primarily on The Good Earth and segments of a few of her other novels of the 1930’s. The appeal of The Good Earth… Read More ›
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Analysis of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Novels
Marion Zimmer Bradley (June 3, 1930 – September 25, 1999) was one of the most prolific authors to write science fiction, with more than sixty novels to her name and others written under pseudonyms. Though she was nominated for both… Read More ›
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Analysis of Ray Bradbury’s Novels
Although Ray Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) became arguably the best-known American science- fiction writer, the majority of his work, which ranges from gothic horror to social criticism, centers on humanistic themes. His best works are powerful… Read More ›
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