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zedat.fu-berlin.de>Jacob L. Mey When Voices Clash A Study in Literary Pragmatics 1998. 23 x 15,5 cm. XV, 454 pages Cloth DM 208,-/approx. US$ 130.00 ISBN 3-11-015820-5 Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 115 Mouton de Gruyter * Berlin * New York What is the basic difference between a good and a bad novel? What makes us lose the `thread' of the story (and interest in the plot and the character)? What is it that interrupts the necessary process of continuously re-creating the text that are so crucial for text consumption and successful readership? The answer to these questions revolves around the notion of voice, understood not only as the way a character speaks but, even more so, the way a character expresses a particular view of the world. A voice represents an (implicit or explicit) point of view, a focus. Vocalization implies focalization, as the author says in the book. The clashing of voices that the title highlights happens when characters run off the story track and, by doing so, derail the entire narrative engine. The book inquires into the ways in which those collisions and derailments are caused, observed, and possibly repaired. The role of the reader is here paramount in making or breaking the narrative. The book examines the various linguistic and narrative-technical `tricks' that the reader has at his or her disposal in order to successfully follow the narrative and keep the thread of the narrative intact. While dealing with a pragmatic problem in literary theory, the book nevertheless is written in such a fashion that also non-initiated readers, taking an interest in the machinery of the reading process, may consult it with profit. Whatever claims are made in the book are shored up by lenghty extracts from literary works, from Horace to Fupz Aakesson, from Caesar to Tolstoy, by way of Woolf, Bulgakov, Wesley, Byatt, and numerous others. _______________________________________________________________________ Mouton de Gruyter Walter de Gruyter, Inc. Postfach 30 34 21 200 Saw Mill River Road D-10728 Berlin Hawthorne, NY 10532 Germany USA Fax: +49 (0)30 26005-351 Fax: +1 914 747-1326 email: moutonMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
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