Introduction: In This World

Michael Wood

doi:10.1162/daed_e_01829

Abstract

Introduction: In This World

Highlights

In This World Michael WoodDownloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/150/1/5/1899874/daed_e_01829.pdf by guest on 02 November 2021The death of the novel, like the not unrelated deaths of God and the author, appears to be an event that is always happening; a sign of life, perhaps
Forster, lecturing in Cambridge on the English novel, settled for the broadest remit he could envisage: “any fictitious prose work,” adding only a stipulation of length (“over 50,000 words”).[1]. This generous category is still too narrow, since it excludes the novel in verse, and we may not think length is a real issue
Augusto Monterroso’s one sentence tale–“when he awoke the dinosaur was still there”2–is most described as the shortest of short stories, but in certain readings it might well grow into a novel

Summary

Introduction

In This World Michael WoodThe death of the novel, like the not unrelated deaths of God and the author, appears to be an event that is always happening; a sign of life, perhaps. The narrator inserts a rhapsodic declaration of praise for Quixote’s valor at this point, attributing it to “the author of this true history.”[12] Quixote is a “paragon of all the brave men in the world ...the glory and honor of all Spanish knights,” a “most valiant Manchegan.”[13] We read this for what it is, a strategic delaying of the comic conclusion of the exploit, but we do note that, crazy Quixote is in taking on the lions, he is not imagining them, or bending reality in any way, so that his courage, even if it is reckless and pointless, is entirely genuine.

Results

Conclusion