Introduction to Reading Fiction (2009 Summer UCSC): highlights
Notes on a 2009 course taught by Katie Woolsey

Aging Crime History (non-USA) Language and Linguistics Natural History Philosophy Political Science Psychology Spirituality USA Modern History

Also, GREEK:
Greek 1: Introduction to Ancient Greek (2008 Autumn UCSC).
Greek 2: The Saga Continues in Ancient Greek (2009 Winter UCSC).
Greek 3: At last we are Reading Ancient Greek (2009 Spring UCSC).

Day 1: Short stories and flash fiction

Edgar Allan Poe: "Annabel Lee".
Kate Chopin: "The Kiss" (1895).
J. G. Ballard: "The Index" (1977), reprinted in his The Complete Short Stories Vol II (2006).

Key concepts:

FICTION A work that is imagined and created, that modifies and embellished truth. Can be prose or poetry, in unmetered or metered language.

STORY The content of a narrative; what happened and in what sequence.

PLOT The causality of the events in a story; why the things that have happened did so and the things that are happening do so; what will happen next and why.

NARRATIVE The sequence and manner in which events are presented; not necessarily chronological.

NARRATOR; NARRATIVE VOICE Who is telling the narrative; consider their relation to the story, their tone and attitude.

NARRATEE Who is addressed by the Narrator.

NARRATOLOGY Study of Narrative.
e.g., EM Forster's Aspects of a Novel for distinction of story and plot.

Day 2

Henry James: "The Figure in the Carpet" from his book The Figure in the Carpet and Other Stories

Key concept is levels of narration:

REAL AUTHOR The real person who made the real work. In real world. Not necessarily revealed in the work.

IMPLIED AUTHOR The apparent author as revealed in the work.
Can talk about the Intent of the Implied Author.
Addresses the Implied Reader.

NARRATOR Who is telling the story.
Addresses the Narratee.

NARRATEE People that identify with the Narrator, or that the Narrator seeks to manipulate.

IMPLIED READER The expected audience: the reader for whom the story is intended.

REAL READER Real-world person that happens to read the story.

Day 3

Willa Cather: O Pioneers! Sections 1 and 2.
History of the Frontier development in the late-nineteeth century.
Walt Whitman: "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" (1865) included in his Leaves of Grass (1881).

Key concepts:

FOCALIZATION The degree to which we see a character's thoughts and intentions, or else watch the character externally without access to interior.

EXTERNAL FOCALIZATION Restricted information; we are told what the characters say and do, but only what can be sensed externally.
Narrator's voice is 3rd person and limited.
Exemplar: Hemingway.

INTERNAL FOCALIZATION In addition to receiving information as in External Focalization, we are told what one character thinks and feels.
Narrator's voice is 1st person or 3rd person.

ZERO FOCALIZATION No restriction on information; we are told what all characters think and feel.
Narrator's voice is 3rd person and omniscient.

Day 4

Willa Cather: O Pioneers! Sections 3, 4, and 5.
Ovid: Pyramus and Thisbe story from Metamorphoses. Death of the lovers at a "mulberry tree, abounding with white berries" darkened by blood. Cather echoes this in her Section 4.

Key concepts, in the perception of O Pioneers!'s architecture as an epic (Sections 1 and 5) bounding a tragedy (Sections 2, 3, and 4):

EPIC Story of founding through great deeds or failures of great deeds. National founding through struggle. Hero larger than life. Cyclical times.

TRAGEDY Sense of inevitable fate; normal-sized persons come to a sad end (especially death); personal stories.

Day 5

Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
- Brilliant narrative poem.
- After complaints on the initial version, Coleridge toned down some of the antiquated language. Also he added a prose gloss, to ensure that readers were clear on the progress of the story.

Day 6

William Faulkner: If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem commenced.
Notice:
- The book is two interwoven stories: "The Wild Palms" and "Old Man", each in five chapters. Each story centers on a naive young man, though their circumstances are quite different.
- William Faulkner's "Acceptance Speech for 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature" (delivered December 10, 1950) and ending:
  
  The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, [but] it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
- Its features of Southern Gothic (Gothic itself being an outgrowth of romanticism), including:
  - Exploration of social and historical issues.
  - Exploration of the underlying dreadfulness that permeates the modern tradition, including in the context of racial bigotry and self-satisfaction of the Southern whites when the South returns to Black Codes ("Southern slavery under a different name").
- Emotions of Horror (and revulsion) versus the emotions of Terror (before something happens).
- Faulkner's use of time:
  
  ANALEPSIS Flashback. Fills in a gap in the narrative.
  
  PROLEPSIS Flashforward. e.g., "Later she would know"

Day 7

William Faulkner: If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem concluded.

Notice:

Themes of the book, which include: self-sacrifice, redemption, sorrow, innocence.

The King James Version of: "Psalm 137" which includes:

How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.

The contrast in the characters of the women in the two stories.
The similarities and differences in the characters of the male protagonists in the two stories.

Day 8

Italo Calvino: The Castle of Crossed Destinies.
Notice the new vocabulary:
- This is a collection of short stories that leverages the use of Tarot cards as "SIGNIFIERS" (in this case, visual images) each denoting a "SIGNIFIED" (a concept) that may or may not be what the user of a "SIGNIFIER" intends.
- According to Saussure [see Structuralism and Post Structuralism for Beginners by Donald D. Palmer], the combination or "associative total" of a "SIGNIFIER" (image) and a "SIGNIFIED" (concept) is called the "SIGN" itself. And: "The first principle of Saussure's linguistics is THE ARBITRARINESS of THE SIGN". The generalization is that anything can be a SIGN for anything.
- According to Barthes [again, as summarized in Structuralism and Post Structuralism for Beginners by Donald D. Palmer]: "in 'myths' the sign itself becomes a signifier in a new system of meaning". Normally, we experience the process slowly, transformations taking place over years rather than hours as the Powers That Be (political, financial, religious, and so on) transform SIGNs to SIGNIFIERs. In Calvino's The Castle of Crossed Destinies, we see the transformation happen in moments from story to story, as the same Tarot card appears in different contexts yet carrying its SIGN-hood (from a previous story), which then becomes a SIGNIFIER in the new story. Palmer (representing Barthes) claims that due to such transformation "the true meaning of the original sign is distorted by being emptied of its history". But surely this would only happen for people ignorant of that history.

Day 9

Salman Rushdie: Haroun and the Sea of Stories, commenced.
An allegory and more: the wikipedia entry on Postmodernism (Retreived November 24, 2008) calls this a "Fabulation" (after Robert Scholes in The Fabulators), which "involves allegory, verbal acrobatics and surrealistic effects. This style can be represented by Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories."

Day 10

Salman Rushdie: Haroun and the Sea of Stories, concluded.

What's next?

Some other recommended books:

Doctorow's: Ragtime.
Faulkner's: Absalom, Absalom! (1937).
Robert Browning's 12-part murder mystery and narrative poem.
Lovecraft.
Jules Verne's: Difference Engine (steam punk).
Barthes': A Lover's Discourse (semiotics).
Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body.
Calvino's Upon a Winter Night a Traveler or Invisible Cities.

[Thanks for visiting.]

FICTION	A work that is imagined and created, that modifies and embellished truth. Can be prose or poetry, in unmetered or metered language.
STORY	The content of a narrative; what happened and in what sequence.
PLOT	The causality of the events in a story; why the things that have happened did so and the things that are happening do so; what will happen next and why.
NARRATIVE	The sequence and manner in which events are presented; not necessarily chronological.
NARRATOR; NARRATIVE VOICE	Who is telling the narrative; consider their relation to the story, their tone and attitude.
NARRATEE	Who is addressed by the Narrator.
NARRATOLOGY	Study of Narrative. e.g., EM Forster's Aspects of a Novel for distinction of story and plot.

REAL AUTHOR	The real person who made the real work. In real world. Not necessarily revealed in the work.
IMPLIED AUTHOR	The apparent author as revealed in the work. Can talk about the Intent of the Implied Author. Addresses the Implied Reader.
NARRATOR	Who is telling the story. Addresses the Narratee.
NARRATEE	People that identify with the Narrator, or that the Narrator seeks to manipulate.
IMPLIED READER	The expected audience: the reader for whom the story is intended.
REAL READER	Real-world person that happens to read the story.

FOCALIZATION	The degree to which we see a character's thoughts and intentions, or else watch the character externally without access to interior.
EXTERNAL FOCALIZATION	Restricted information; we are told what the characters say and do, but only what can be sensed externally. Narrator's voice is 3rd person and limited. Exemplar: Hemingway.
INTERNAL FOCALIZATION	In addition to receiving information as in External Focalization, we are told what one character thinks and feels. Narrator's voice is 1st person or 3rd person.
ZERO FOCALIZATION	No restriction on information; we are told what all characters think and feel. Narrator's voice is 3rd person and omniscient.

EPIC	Story of founding through great deeds or failures of great deeds. National founding through struggle. Hero larger than life. Cyclical times.
TRAGEDY	Sense of inevitable fate; normal-sized persons come to a sad end (especially death); personal stories.

ANALEPSIS	Flashback. Fills in a gap in the narrative.
PROLEPSIS	Flashforward. e.g., "Later she would know"

Introduction to Reading Fiction (2009 Summer UCSC): highlights Notes on a 2009 course taught by Katie Woolsey