The Margin Without Centre

by Cheng, Chu-chueh

• ISBN13: 9783039119974
• ISBN10: 3039119974
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-07-08
• Publisher: Peter Lang Pub Inc

Summary

The title of this volume illustrates the significance of margins and the instability of demarcation in the fiction of Kazuo Ishiguro. The author approaches Ishiguro's writings as a corpus rather than separate units, examining the novels to illuminate their generic, theoretical or stylistic affiliations. The chapters attend to seemingly peripheral elements - trivial details, incoherent conversations, hackneyed notions, minor characters and everyday occurrences - in order to expose what is deliberately obscured or contained within the explicit narrative. The poststructuralist approach and the structuralist objective of this study may appear incongruous, but the seemingly incompatible pairing in fact articulates a number of paradoxes that Ishiguro's novels manifest: the alterity of the international, the disclosure of the concealed, the innovation of the banal, the significance of the trivial, the presence of the absent and the accord of the cacophonous.

Author Biography

Chu-chueh Cheng is Professor of English at National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan. She has published a number of essays on Victorian literature and contemporary British literature.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vii
AuthorÆs Notes	p. ix
List of Abbreviations	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Making and Marketing Kazuo IshiguroÆs Alterity	p. 9
The Rhetoric of Evasion	p. 37
Chic Clichés	p. 73
Glimpsing History through Stories	p. 103
Illumination of the Obscure	p. 133
The Use of American Characters in A Pale View of Hills	p. 161
Conclusion	p. 187
Bibliography	p. 193
Index	p. 203
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

The title of this volume illustrates the significance of margins and the The title of this volume illustrates the significance of margins and the instability of demarcation in the fiction of Kazuo Ishiguro. The author instability of demarcation in the fiction of Kazuo Ishiguro. The author approaches Ishiguro's writings as a corpus rather than separate units, approaches Ishiguro's writings as a corpus rather than separate units, examining the novels to illuminate their generic, theoretical or stylistic examining the novels to illuminate their generic, theoretical or stylistic affiliations. The chapters attend to seemingly peripheral elements – trivial affiliations. The chapters attend to seemingly peripheral elements – trivial details, incoherent conversations, hackneyed notions, minor characters and details, incoherent conversations, hackneyed notions, minor characters and everyday occurrences – in order to expose what is deliberately obscured or everyday occurrences – in order to expose what is deliberately obscured or contained within the explicit narrative. contained within the explicit narrative. The poststructuralist approach and the structuralist objective of this study may The poststructuralist approach and the structuralist objective of this study may appear incongruous, but the seemingly incompatible pairing in fact articulates a appear incongruous, but the seemingly incompatible pairing in fact articulates a number of paradoxes that Ishiguro's novels manifest: the alterity of the number of paradoxes that Ishiguro's novels manifest: the alterity of the international, the disclosure of the concealed, the innovation of the banal, the international, the disclosure of the concealed, the innovation of the banal, the significance of the trivial, the presence of the absent and the accord of the significance of the trivial, the presence of the absent and the accord of the cacophonous. cacophonous.