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BIB: Widiss on LOLITA and authorship
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There's a chapter on *Lolita *in Benjamin Widiss's 2011 book *Obscure
Invitations, *as described below:
Literary studies in the postwar era have consistently barred attributing
specific intentions to authors based on textual evidence or ascribing
textual presences to the authors themselves. *Obscure Invitations* argues
that this taboo has blinded us to fundamental elements of twentieth-century
literature. Widiss focuses on the particularly self-conscious constructions
of authorship that characterize modernist and postmodernist writing,
elaborating the narrative strategies they demand and the reading practices
they yield. He reveals that apparent manifestations of "the death of the
author" and of the "free play" of language are performances that ultimately
affirm authorial control of text and reader. The book significantly revises
received understandings of central texts by Faulkner, Stein, and Nabokov.
It then discusses Eggers' *Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius* and the
films *Seven* and *The Usual Suspects*, demonstrating that each is a highly
self-aware rebuttal of the notion of authorial absence.
http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=20201
--
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
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Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
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Invitations, *as described below:
Literary studies in the postwar era have consistently barred attributing
specific intentions to authors based on textual evidence or ascribing
textual presences to the authors themselves. *Obscure Invitations* argues
that this taboo has blinded us to fundamental elements of twentieth-century
literature. Widiss focuses on the particularly self-conscious constructions
of authorship that characterize modernist and postmodernist writing,
elaborating the narrative strategies they demand and the reading practices
they yield. He reveals that apparent manifestations of "the death of the
author" and of the "free play" of language are performances that ultimately
affirm authorial control of text and reader. The book significantly revises
received understandings of central texts by Faulkner, Stein, and Nabokov.
It then discusses Eggers' *Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius* and the
films *Seven* and *The Usual Suspects*, demonstrating that each is a highly
self-aware rebuttal of the notion of authorial absence.
http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=20201
--
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/