Hyperbolic Realism: A Wild Reading of Pynchon's and Bolao's Late Maximalist Fiction

(Paperback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

What comes after postmodernism in literature

Hyperbolic Realism engages the contradiction that while it remains impossible to present a full picture of the world, assessing reality from a planetary perspective is now more than ever an ethical obligation for contemporary literature. The book thus examines the hyperbolic forms and features of Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day and Roberto Bolao's 2666 their discursive and material abundance, excessive fictionality, close intertwining of fantastic and historical genres, narrative doubt and spiraling uncertainty which are deployed not as an escape from, but a plunge into reality. Faced with a reality in a permanent state of exception, Pynchon and Bolao react to the excesses and distortions of the modern age with a new poetic and aesthetic paradigm that rejects both the naive illusion of a return to the real and the self-enclosed artificiality of classical postmodern writing: hyperbolic realism.

Reviews

Samir Sellami writes with brilliant clarity and makes difficult arguments easy to follow. Philosophers and critical theorists should study his techniques. * Kathryn Hume, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor Emerita of English, Pennsylvania State University, USA *

Author Bio

Samir Sellami is a literary critic from Berlin, Germany, and founding editor of the Berlin Review.