Forms of Affliction and Identity in Graham Swift‟S Novels
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The Impossibility of Achieving Self-Knowledge in the Novels of Graham Swift
THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF ACHIEVING SELF-KNOWLEDGE IN THE NOVELS OF GRAHAM SWIFT KATHERINE COTTIER FOR MUM AND DAD 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS An enormous thank-you to my parents for all their years of support, love and encouragement - and especially for listening to all that 'arty stuff'. Thank-you to Dr Jim Acheson, my supervisor, for his invaluable patience, words of wisdom and belief in me. My gratitude also to Professor David Gunby for his care and quiet guidance during my Honours and under graduate years. Thank-you to Grandma for her letters 'with something extra' and for reading me fairy tales. Thank-you to my brothers Sam and Luke for their office visits and coffee breaks. An extra special thanks to Jack Charters and Diana Cameron for welcoming me so readily into their homes. Dan, Miles, Dave, Suzanne, Phil, Jen-Jen, Karl, Katy and Sue - thank you for your unfailing interest and encouragement. 3 CONTENTS Preface 6 Chapter One: Part I - Psychoanalytic Narration in Water/and 10 Part II - Swift's Use of Autobiography in Shuttlecock and Ever After 25 Chapter Two: Circularity in the Novels of Graham Swift: Water/and and Last Orders 52 Chapter Three: Swift's Use of the Fairy Tale in Water/and, Ever After and Out of This World 87 Works Cited 135 4 ABBREVIATIONS EA - Swift, Graham. Ever After. London: Picador, 1992. LO - . Last Orders. London: Picador, 1996. OTW - . Out of This World. London: Penguin Books, 1988 S - . Shuttlecock. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1981. W - Water/and. New York: Washington Square Press, 1985. 5 PREFACE ' 6 In each of his novels Graham Swift provides a kind of prototype for the reader: that of a black, coiled, twisting spiral. -
Graham Swift Writer - Fiction
Graham Swift Writer - fiction Graham Swift was born in 1949 and is the author of nine novels. He is the recipient of many awards for his fiction, including the bi- annual Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for SHUTTLECOCK (1981); the Guardian Fiction Prize for WATERLAND (1983); and in 1996, the Booker Prize for Fiction for LAST ORDERS. Two of his novels have been made into films: WATERLAND, starring Jeremy Irons, and, more recently, LAST ORDERS, starring Michael Caine, Helen Mirren, Bob Hoskins and Tom Courtenay. Agents Caradoc King Agent Millie Hoskins [email protected] Assistant Becky Percival [email protected] 020 3214 0932 Publications Fiction Publication Notes Details HERE WE ARE It is Brighton, 1959, and the theatre at the end of the pier is having its best 2020 summer season in years. Ronnie, a brilliant young magician, and Evie, his UK Simon & dazzling assistant, are top of the bill, drawing audiences each night. Schuster US Knopf Meanwhile, Jack – Jack Robinson, as in ‘before you can say’ – is everyone’s favourite compère, a born entertainer, holding the whole show together. As the summer progresses, the off-stage drama between the three begins to overshadow their theatrical success, and events unfold which will have lasting consequences for all their futures. Rich, comic, alive and subtly devastating, Here We Are is a masterly piece of literary magicianship which pulls back the curtain on the human condition. United Agents | 12-26 Lexington Street London W1F OLE | T +44 (0) 20 3214 0800 | F +44 (0) 20 3214 0801 | E [email protected] Publication Notes Details MOTHERING It is March 30th 1924. -
Mtafiction in Virginia Woolf's to the Lighthouse and Graham Swift's
Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research Al- Andalus University for Science & Technology Deanship of Postgraduate Studies Faculty of Arts and Humanities Department of English Metafiction in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and Graham Swift’s Waterland A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for a Master Degree in the field of English Literature Submitted by: Ahd Omar Abdulla Bin- Qirat Supervised by: Asso. Prof. Abdulla A. Bukeir 2018 بسم اهلل الرمحن الرحيم In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful Bin- Qirat II Acknowledgements This thesis is the result of work carried out under the direction of my supervisor, Asso. Prof. Abdulla Bukeir, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. I am grateful for his continuous guidance and constructive comments. Acknowledgments are also made to the Rector of Al- Andalus University for Science & Technology, Prof. Ahmed Barrgaan, and the Dean of Postgraduate Studies, Assoc. Prof. Yahya Qatran. Special thanks also go to the Department of English and its head, Asst. Prof. Abdullah Aleriany. Last but not least, I am deeply and permanently indebted to my parents. Without their guidance and constant encouragement, the completion of this thesis would not have been possible. My heartfelt gratitude goes to my sister, Maram, for her unflagging support during the writing of this thesis. Bin- Qirat III Table of Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... II Table of -
The Uses of Formulaic Language in Graham Swift's England and Other
CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Jagiellonian Univeristy Repository The Uses of Formulaic Language 118 DOI: 10.2478/abcsj-2019-0018 American, British and Canadian Studies, Volume 33, December 2019 The Uses of Formulaic Language in Graham Swift’s England and Other Stories BOŻENA KUCAŁA Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland Abstract This article argues that in his collection of short stories England and Other Stories (2014), as in most of his fiction, Graham Swift is preoccupied with the limits of language, with what remains unsaid or is poorly communicated. In this volume, the writer’s focus on private, domestic and ordinary lives corresponds to his representation of the language of everyday interaction as essentially non-creative and formulaic. Swift’s deliberately clichéd language reflects what, as contemporary studies of discourse reveal, is a standard mode of social interaction. For example, Roberta Corrigan et al. affirm that linguistic formulae should be considered as yet another manifestation of behavioural routines (xxiii-xxiv), while Alison Wray claims that the reliance on formulaic language “predominates in normal language processing” (Formulaic Language 101). A range of uses of formulaic language is analysed in selected stories from the collection. It is demonstrated that, typically, characters choose prefabricated language for the paradoxical purpose of establishing and maintaining a degree of contact with others while avoiding in-depth interaction. Keywords: Graham Swift, England and Other Stories, contemporary English fiction, short story, formulaic language, cliché, inarticulacy After the four decades of Graham Swift’s novelistic career, the critical assessment of his oeuvre is now due for a realignment. -
Memory and Representation of World War II in Contemporary British and German Fiction: a Comparative Analysis
Memory and Representation of World War II in Contemporary British and German Fiction: a Comparative Analysis Christopher R. Barenberg A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Nottingham Trent University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2010 This work is the intellectual property of the author. You may copy up to 5% of this work for private study, or personal, non-commercial research. Any re-use of the information contained within this document should be fully referenced, quoting the author, title, university, degree level and pagination. Queries or requests for any other use, or if a more substantial copy is required, should be directed in the owner(s) of the Intellectual Property Rights. Abstract Memory and Representation of World War II in Contemporary British and German Fiction: a Comparative Analysis This thesis constitutes the first detailed attempt to compare British and German contemporary prose fiction in relation to the representation and transmission of collective memories of the Second World War. The primary aim of this comparison is to establish the existence of a transnational literary approach adopted by authors to address questions of how to remember the events that occurred during the Second World War in the absence of living memory. I will argue that prose fiction contributes to the interdisciplinary field of what could be loosely called 'memory studies' and that the similarities between British and German fictional responses to the Second World War indicate that there is a development towards a subgenre of memory fiction that transcends national boundaries. In my thesis, I have compared numerous contemporary examples of ‘memory’ fiction in Britain and Germany. -
Graham Swift's Mothering Sunday As A
Ostrava Journal of English Philology Volume 9 ● Number 2 ● 2017 OSTRAVA JOURNAL OF ENGLISH PHILOLOGY Contents Literature and Culture Christopher Koy “What will thou do, old man?” – Refashioning Lear’s Descent into Madness in Philip Roth’s Sabbath’s Theater ..........................................................................................7 Aristi Trendel Love in the Years of War: the Representation of Love and War in Katherine Anne Porter’s “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” and Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood .....27 Petr Chalupský A Romance with Words: Graham Swift’s Mothering Sunday as a “Coming-of-Voice” Novel .........................................................................................37 Ema Jelínková In the Eye of the Storm: The Motif of Silence in A. L. Kennedy’s Early Short Stories: Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains .....................................................................53 Radek Glabazňa “We’ll call it a draw”: Footballing against late capitalism with Terry Eagleton ............63 Book Reviews Jane M. Ekstam The Country House Revisited. Variations on a Theme from Forster to Hollinghurst (Tereza Topolovská) ......................73 News, Announcements Ondřej Procházka Conference Report: Multimodality – Towards a New Discipline .....................................77 3 Literature and Culture “What will thou do, old man?” – Refashioning Lear’s Descent into Madness in Philip Roth’s Sabbath’s Theater Christopher Koy University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice Abstract Regarded by critics as one of Philip Roth’s comic and salacious masterpieces, Sabbath’s Theater incorporates a fascinatingly large amount of intertextual responses to William Shakespeare’s sub- lime tragedy King Lear. From Gloucester’s opening account of enjoying the creation of his bastard son in the opening of Act I to King Lear’s proclamation to “Let Copulation Thrive” in Act IV scene 6, Roth draws on Shakespeare’s tragedy to present his own modern version of extramarital love- affairs, betrayal, madness, suicide, and acknowledgments of mistakes and regrets. -
Heroism and Intergenerational Conflict in Graham Swift's
Online International Interdisciplinary Research Journal, {Bi-Monthly}, ISSN2249-9598, Volume-III, Issue-II, Mar-Apr 2013 Heroism and Intergenerational Conflict in Graham Swift’s Shuttlecock, Waterland and Last Orders S. P. Solage DKTE’s Yashwantrao Chavan Polytechnic, Ichalkaranji, Maharashtra, India Abstract Graham Swift was awarded the Booker Prize for fiction for his sixth novel Last Orders in 1996. Then he was accepted as a contemporary British novelist. The reception of Swift’s work by scholars and critics has always been respectful, and often more than that, but it has on occasion been somewhat negative. Swift’s career has been very successful one. His first novel, The sweet shop Owners , was first published in 1980. Shuttlecock followed in 1981, and a volume of mostly previously published short stories, Learning to Swim and other stories , appeared in 1982. His most celebrated novel, Waterland , was brought out to great acclaim in 1983. Since then he has published– Out of this World (1988), Ever After (1992), Last orders (1996), and The Light of Day (2003), Tomorrow(2007), Wish You Were Here(2001). He wins different awards for his fiction. Shuttlecock took the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1983. Waterland was awarded the Winifred Holtby Award of the Royal Society of Literature and the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1983. Swift has also own highly regarded foreign prizes for his fiction receiving the Italian Premio Grinzane Cavour for Waterland in 1987 and the French Prix du Meilleur Liver Etranger for Ever After in 1994. In 1996 Last Orders took the important and remunerative Booker Prize, as well as the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. -
David James, Textual Practice
Textual Practice 20(2), 2006, 355–388 Reviews David James Stef Craps, Trauma and Ethics in the Novels of Graham Swift: No Short-Cuts to Salvation (Brighton and Portland, Oregon: Sussex Academic Press, 2005), viii þ 230pp., £45.00 (hbk), £15.95 (pbk) Adam Phillips wrote in The Guardian earlier this year that ‘[u]nderstate- ment reminds us that there is something under our statements’. This canny if slightly terse conundrum joins a list of the many gems he retrieves from Freud’s ‘contagious writing’.1 Phillips revives here a paradox that performs a dual purpose; cherished as a memento from Freud while paying homage to his legacy, it piques our vigilance to the duplicity of colloquial exchange. It’s also a phrase whose crafty concision encapsulates Graham Swift’s way of articulating the ‘oddness of the ordinary’, as Peter Ackroyd commends it, by ‘stripping the veils of language’.2 Understate- ments have certainly become Swift’s speciality, resounding throughout his fictions of ethical consequence illuminated by Stef Craps in this valu- able new study. Craps’s approach is far from pedestrian. Within its single-author format, what makes this book distinctive is that it proceeds chronologically while working hard to focus its thematic coverage, distinguishing itself from a standard text-by-text exposition. Each of the seven core chapters offers a self-sufficient discussion, devoted to individual works; together they sustain an overarching, meta-theoretical debate, giving a practical demonstration of hermeneutic ethics in action on a novelist whose compas- sionate register has consistently refused the dictates of conventional moral- ity. -
Postwar Englishness in the Fiction of Pat Barker, Graham Swift and Adam
POSTWAR ENGLISHNESS IN THE FICTION OF PAT BARKER, GRAHAM SWIFT AND ADAM THORPE INGRID JENNIFER GUNBY Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University ofLeeds, School ofEnglish, October 2002 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work ofothers. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. For my father, and the father he never knew. 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could not have been written without the intellectual, emotional and financial help of many people and institutions. Of these, financial assistance is perhaps the easiest to specify, and I would like to thank the New Zealand Vice Chancellors' Committee, the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, the University of Leeds, and the School of English for providing the funding that enabled me to undertake this research, and the Leeds University Union for assistance with nursery fees. Dr John McLeod's deft guidance played no small part in keeping a potentially unruly project under control, and his enthusiasm reinvigorated me at many moments when my own was flagging. Alistair Stead read Chapter One and was, as he always is, both rigorous and generous in his comments. My thinking on Pat Barker benefited early on from long discussions and the sharing of research resources with Roberta Jackson, whose own study on Barker I am eagerly awaiting. My fellow research students in the School of English have encouraged, commiserated and celebrated with me, and helped me out on occasions too numerous to count: special mention should go to Caroline Sumpter, Colin Winborn, Rob Ward and Richard Haw.