Should We Believe? The Fictional, The Virtual and the Real in the Contemporary Novel

Wilson, L.G. 2020. Should We Believe? The Fictional, The Virtual and the Real in the Contemporary Novel. Textual Practice. 34 (2), pp. 215-233. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2018.1508063

TitleShould We Believe? The Fictional, The Virtual and the Real in the Contemporary Novel
TypeJournal article
AuthorsWilson, L.G.
Abstract

Recent work from both novelists and literary critics has suggested that the contemporary novel is sick of fiction and has turned instead to the ‘real’. This article questions this understanding of the contemporary novel and, by focusing in particular on the 6-volume Min Kamp by Karl Ove Knausgaard, suggests instead that the most important representational model for the contemporary novel is the virtual. In establishing this, the article returns to both a history of the concept of the virtual and to Coleridge’s ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ in order to make visible the role of the virtual as a model for contemporary prose fiction.

KeywordsContemporary fiction, belief, the fictional, the real, the virtual, Karl Ove Knausgaard
JournalTextual Practice
Journal citation34 (2), pp. 215-233
ISSN0950-236X
Year2020
PublisherTaylor & Francis
Accepted author manuscript
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2018.1508063
Web address (URL)https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0950236X.2018.1508063
Publication dates
Published online03 Dec 2018
Published in print2020

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