Narrative Democracy in Jonathan Coe’s and Hanif Kureishi’s Novels: to Share or not to Share?

Études Britanniques Contemporaines

关键词: sexual marginality;    generic transition;    metamodern oscillation;    post-postmodernism;    participative literature;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The contemporary novel may be seen as a new sexualised locus of democracy where Jonathan Coe and Hanif Kureishi give the floor to the sexually invisible. Their novels have become a sexual parliament where the authors include the excluded and where the quests for gender and sex identity have become major concerns. Truth and humanity seem to have buried irony, so dear to postmodernists and henceforth seen as disconnected from reality and the people. Indeed, the novel lays itself bare and represents a paragon of sharing. However, this sharing is not only intimate but may also be narrative. Coe’s and Kureishi’s novels have given the narratee star billing. Narratives and their reception have been shared with the reader who has been given more power to choose the tone, the point of view, the language, the end and the characterization of protagonists thanks to the recurrent motif of oscillation. However, this diegetic oscillation or participative narrative that gives the reader the power to choose and to become a dynamic actor may show downward slides to democracy and present challenges to the definition of political literature and democracy.

【 授权许可】

Unknown