Thursday, November 4, 2010

Reading for the Plot by Peter Brooks

This monograph begins by contending that plot is far more important in literature than we tend to give it credit for being. But, rather than taking a strictly formalist approach (although Brooks does acknowledge its usefulness), Brooks gives a psychoanalytic reading of plot itself (as opposed to authors or characters)--looking at the dynamic relationship between fabula (the events of the story) and sjužet (the way these events are narrated in the text) and the role of repetition in literature in relation to Freud, especially Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Brooks's method seems useful, and it produces convincing readings. There's a wide range of subjects here from Balzac, Stendhal, and Flaubert to Dickens and Conrad, and finally Faulkner. The readings of Conrad and Faulkner were particularly useful and salient to me.

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