Elements: The Novels of James DickeyElements: The Novels of James Dickey draws upon previously undiscussed manuscripts and notes to articulate Dickey's fictional vision as it appears in his three published novels, while also examining his early unpublished fiction and post deliverance screenplays. The book's thesis follows Dickey's philosophical and verbal theorgy for his published fiction (the practice of merging), illustrating the multifaceted and layered manner in which it functions, encompassing protagonist and environment and reader and text. Just as Ed Gentry, Joel Cahill, and Muldrow assume the essence of their respective environments, the reader is subtly asked to become a part of the text while retaining cognitive independence "to blend in the place your're in, but with a mind to do something" (To the White Sea 273). Having explored the connective qualities of Dickey's published novels, the book's final chapter turns to a summary of Dickey's unpublished and largely unknown fiction. Discussing a novel manuscript, four short stories, three screenplays, and five screenplay prospecti, the chapter seeks to summarize these heretofore undiscussed works while also tracing their similarities with the published texts. |
Contents
| 35 | |
Air Alnilam and Crux | 63 |
Earth To the White Sea | 129 |
Fire Unpublished Fictional Fragments and Screenplays | 163 |
ConclusionElements | 197 |
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Alnilam angakoq animals Arctic Dreams artist Atlanta Barry Lopez Baughman become body book's Bourdieu box 91k cadets celestial celestial navigation Certeau characters Crux death Deliverance Delmore Dickey explains Dickey's Dickey's fiction dream Ed's environment essence existence experience flight flying Frank Frank Cahill Friedrich Nietzsche Gene Hannah Harbelis Heraclitus human ideas imagination inhuman Interview with James James Dickey Newsletter James Dickey's Deliverance Japanese Jean-Paul Sartre Joel Cahill Joel's Julian kind landscape language Lewis Makens mind Muldrow mysterious mystical nature Nietzsche philosophy physical Pierre Bourdieu Poe Poe Poe poem poet poetic poetry practice of merging protagonist published novels reader reading relationship Review 17/3-4 Fall/Winter river says screenplay Series 11 Shears Shears's South Carolina Southern space spatial Stanley star story suggests symbolic tactics takes tape Texas Review Theodore Roethke things trans University Press utopia vision Voiced Connections Walter Kaufman White Sea words writing York
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Page 20 - Why is the writerly our value? Because the goal of literary work (of literature as work) is to make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text.
Page 26 - I, who came back from the depths laughing too loudly, Become another thing; My eyes extend beyond the farthest bloom of the waves; I lose and find myself in the long water; I am gathered together once more; I embrace the world.
Page 21 - This reader is thereby plunged into a kind of idleness — he is intransitive; he is, in short, serious: instead of functioning himself, instead of gaining access to the magic of the signifier, to the pleasure of writing, he is left with no more than the poor freedom either to accept or reject the text : reading is nothing more than a referendum.
Page 22 - In a subtle way both meanings come to the same thing, as we perceive when we are able to let the work of art act upon us as it acted upon the artist. To grasp its meaning, we must allow it to shape us as it once shaped him. Then we understand the nature of his experience. We see that he has drawn upon...
Page 15 - I call a strategy the calculation (or manipulation) of power relationships that becomes possible as soon as a subject with will and power (a business, an army, a city, a scientific institution) can be isolated. It postulates a place that can be delimited as its own and serve as the base from which relations with an exteriority composed of targets or threats (customers or competitors, enemies, the country surrounding the city, objectives and objects of research, etc.) can be managed. As in management,...