Fictional Diary Research Articles

Don't Show Us, Tell Us: An Interview with Jean Little

Jean Little was born in Taiwan but has been living in Canada since the age of seven. She began writing as a child and has never stopped, in spite of the challenge of her blindness. Despite limited vision, she attended regular school and graduated in 1955 from the University of Toronto with an Honours Degree in English. Little taught handicapped children until 1962. Her first book Mine for Keeps, published that year, won the Little, Brown Children's Book Award. Since then, she has written over 30 works, including novels, picture books, autobiography, poetry and short stories. Written with a talking-computer, her books have been translated into 10 languages and have won many awards, including a Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award (for her Dear Canada title, Orphan At My Door), the Ruth Schwartz Award, the Canada Council Literature Prize, The Vicky Metcalf Award and the Boston Globe Horn-Book Honor Book Award. Her other Dear Canada books include Brothers Far From Home (2003), If I Die Before I Wake (2007) and Exiles from the War (2010). Little lives in Guelph, Ontario, with her sister, great-niece and great-nephew, and a house full of dogs, cats, birds and other pets. In addition to all the awards and nominations, she has received four honorary degrees and has been made a member of the Order of Canada for her outstanding contribution to Canadian children's literature. The following interview was completed by email; Little's responses were submitted on September 2, 2011. It explores her views about Canadian children's writing and her writing process for Dear Canada: Exiles from the War, a fictional diary that draws on many of her own war-time experiences and that was a finalist for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People, 2011. It examines her views about writing a fictionalised diary as opposed to a traditional novel and her reliving of and research into Guelph during the Second World War.

Fantasy proneness and counterfactual thinking

Counterfactual thinking (CFT; mentally simulating alternatives to reality) is central to learning and motivation. Two studies explored the relationship between CFT and fantasy proneness, a personality trait typified by excessive fantasies hard to distinguish from reality. In study1, participants completed a fictional diary entry which was used to measure spontaneous CFT and the Creative Experiences Questionnaire measure of fantasy proneness. Fantasy proneness was significantly correlated with the generation of counterfactual thoughts. Both CFT and fantasy proneness have been independently associated with low mood and study2 included a measure of negative emotional state (the Depression, Anxiety and Stress scale) in addition to the CEQ and CFT. Fantasy proneness and negative emotion both predicted CFT, but no interaction between them was observed. The results suggest that individuals high in fantasy proneness have a general tendency to think counterfactually.

As formas e os dias

Este artigo examina as singularidades do diário íntimo do Memorial de Aires, último romance de Machado de Assis, relacionando- as às especificidades da matéria histórica brasileira oitocentista. O autor procura demonstrar que o tratamento dado à forma diário pelo narrador do livro corresponde a práticas sociais típicas das elites do Segundo Reinado no Brasil.

Werk neben dem Werk: Tagebuch und Autobiographie bei Robert Musil (Germanistische Texte und Studien, 82) by Constanze Breuer

908 Reviews Werk neben dem Werk: Tagebuch und Autobiographie bei Robert Musil. By Con stanze Breuer. (Germanistische Texte und Studien, 82) Hildesheim: Olms. viii+356 pp. 49.80. ISBN 978-3-487-13944-9. Musil wrote around 1900 in his Tagebiicher that diaries are a sign of the times: they are the easiest and least disciplined form, so that in the future perhaps only diaries would be written. He attributed to the diary form both much and little importance, suggesting a paradox that is reflected in his own itinerary as a writer. Among Musil's firstwritings are fictional diary entries, found inwhat may, or may not, be real diaries; and at the end of his lifehe was writing other fictional diaries for his protagonist Ulrich, who, in the unpublished chapters ofDer Mann ohne Eigenschaften, iswriting them to describe his quest for something like Utopia. Musil apparently did not intend to publish themiscellany of manuscripts now called his diaries, and it isnot even clear what part of the extant unpublished novel manuscripts he would have published, ifany, had he lived long enough to finish the novel. In dealing with these complexities, the strength of Constanze Breuer's study of the diaries is to show that selected passages from them can illuminate some themes as well as the nature of fiction in several ofMusiFs works. Notably, these consi derations allow her, for example, to contest the idea that the final version ofDie Versuchung der stillen Veronika is to be understood as a diary. And she argues that the diaries show that MusiFs reaction to World War I is of paramount importance for understanding him. Much ofwhat is presented here is not new, although two of Breuers interpretations do strikeme as contributions to the ongoing debates about MusiFs work. First, Breuer argues that certain brief passages in the diaries suggest thatMu silwas using a religious framework for his enigmatic novella Die Amsel. Breuer contends that the three framed stories inDie Amsel refer obliquely toWhitsun, Epiphany, and Easter, but in such a way as to show that the 'secularization of religion' contests the possibility of religion today (p. 194). By referring obliquely to a religious model, the tale shows that the narrator's experience is 'incommen surable' with a religious explanation, for there is a break between the twoworlds. This rather ingenious interpretation perhaps draws upon interpretations of Kafka to show that the religious text exists in the narrative text even as the narrated text annuls it. Secondly, Breuer argues that the Utopian idea of 'another condition' thatUlrich seeks inDer Mann ohne Eigenschaften should be understood in terms of classical aesthetics. Breuer's interpretation of the 'other condition' is thatMusil wanted to develop the idea of an individual Utopia in order then to show that it could not exist; with this her interpretation affirms that the telos of the novel would have been a critique of its own Utopia from a rationalist viewpoint. In this regard it is similar to several recent interpretations, but Breuer draws upon the diaries, especially 'Heft 35', to argue in addition that the other condition is neither a mystical state nor Romantic effusiveness, but an aesthetic experience dependent MLR, 105.3, 201o 909 upon a recognition of the limitations of the subject (p. 329). Drawing analogies with Goethe's analysis of aesthetic sensation, Breuer's interpretation ispersuasive. It places Musil in themainstream of German aesthetics, and for the reader who finds that the other condition' is an opaque notion, she shows that Musil, like Joyce and Proust to whom he is so often compared, believed that somehow literature is a transcendental matter in a world without transcendence?and cannot offer a Utopian solution to the historical problems thathad driven Musil into exile. University of Missouri Allen Thiher Kafka lesen: Acht Textanalysen. By Marko Pajevic. Bonn: Bernstein. 2009. 112 pp. 12.80. ISBN 978-3-939431-37-4. 'Verkehrmit Gespenstern: Gothic und Moderne bei Franz Kafka. By Barry Murnane. (Klassische Moderne, 12) Wurzburg: Ergon. 2009. 413 pp. 48. ISBN 978-3-89913-599-2. These two new approaches toKafka could inmany ways hardly be more different. Marko Pajevic's Kafka lesen provides, as the title suggests, 'eine prazise Lekture' (p...

Me, the Madman - Writing the Self in Russian Diary Fiction

The article discusses the evolution of diary fiction in Russian literature focussing on the “notes/diaries of madmen”. Madness is conceived here as a cultural construct which may be invested with different meanings and connotations in different contexts. The examination of varying manifestations of madness in Russian fictional diaries is connected to the investigation of diary fiction as a literary genre, concentrating on some typical characteristics ascribed to fictional diaries, such as the position of the narrator-protagonist towards his self-reflective writing, writing as a theme, and the role of the written word in the construction of the self. The paper provides also a brief typology of mad diarists by exemplifying the evolution of Russian diary fiction through five works representing different historical periods, namely Gogol'?????'s Zapiski sumassedsego, Dostoevskij's Zapiski iz podpol'ja, Venedikt Erofeev's Zapiski psichopata, Makanin's Andegraund, ili Geroj nasego vremeni, and Bujda's Scina. Sumassedsie zapiski o dejanijach Boziich, soversennych literaturnym zitelem po imeni Ju Ve. The types of “madness” the diarists exhibit imply changes in the meanings and functions embedded in the notion of insanity in literature from the 1830s to the beginning of the 21st century.

Sallie Gal and the Wall-a-Kee Man (review)

Reviewed by: Delicious: The Life & Art of Wayne Thiebaud Deborah Stevenson Rubin, Susan Goldman Delicious: The Life & Art of Wayne Thiebaud. Chronicle, 2007108p illus. with photographs ISBN 978-0-8118-5168-8$15.95 Ad Gr. 4-8 There are two civil wars in Amanda's life: there's the subject of her fifth-grade class, for which she must write a fictional diary; there's also the state of her household, where her parents' warring has finally resulted in the departure of her father. What could be a heavy-handed contrivance is, under the deft hand of Claudia Mills, an unusual opportunity for reflection and exploration of some complicated and painful feelings; Amanda's Civil War diary, which gives fictional voice to a girl whose family is divided when two brothers enlist on different sides, is a wee bit overimpressive for a fifth-grade writer, but it's an absorbing story in its own right that definitely contributes to the overall narrative rather than slowing it down. The book goes for realistic dynamics over convenient didacticism: while Amanda is oversimplifying things in blaming her mother entirely for the separation (her father actually has a new relationship), her mom is nonetheless no picnic; there's also some honest examination of youthful racial issues as Amanda examines her own overconsidered responses to a black classmate. Ultimately, this is a polished and accessible exploration of a tough situation, sure to resonate with kids, who are all familiar, one way or another, with threats to domestic tranquility. Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewFull AccessThe Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel ParentingCaroline Fisher M.D., Ph.D.Caroline Fisher M.D., Ph.D.Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Jun 2007https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2007.58.6.886AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail In this book, Alice Miller presents the idea that childhood abuse manifests as adult physical illness. She holds that the Fourth Commandment—honor your father and mother—keeps both patients and therapists from addressing the parents' role in, and responsibility for, the abuse. Instead of validating the child's fury at her parents, the unwitting therapist may collude with the child in excusing her parents or demanding forgiveness for their inadequacy. Miller states that by doing this, the patient's anger is repressed and is expressed instead by physical ailments. A wise therapist will allow the patient to express anger at her parents directly during therapy and validate those feelings, allowing the patient to release her dysfunctional attachment to her abusers.That said, you needn't read the book at all, because it does not offer much else. Miller is a smart woman with valuable ideas, but this book falls short. There are three sections, a preface, an introduction to each section, and a postscript. The meat of the book is in the postscript, wherein Miller states her argument most cogently and sets forth her recommendations for effective treatment techniques. If you insist on reading the book, start there. The first section goes through a series of brief vignettes about famous people who died young and also had been abused as children. In this section I found myself wishing she had coauthored the book with Paul Harvey, because I, for one, need "the rest of the story." There is little detail in each vignette, sometimes to the point of leaving the reader hanging, and the argument is poorly supported by the data presented. The second section goes into more direct discussion of the ways in which the body harbors the effects of abuse, as well as a fair amount of autobiographical material. The final section, written as the diary of an adolescent girl, is a case study of anorexia. The girl is fictional, and the diary reads like, well, a fictional diary written by someone with an agenda.In her books, Alice Miller repeatedly asks that society consider the ill effects of parenting that is coercive, abusive, and humiliating. She asks that we consider the everyday, commonplace humiliations as well as the cases of gross abuse. She has been a champion for children and people who were abused as children. In this book, she puts forth a reasonable hypothesis, the truth of which many people will intuitively recognize from their own practices. However, the expansion of that hypothesis falls short.Dr. Fisher is affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester. FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 58Issue 6 June, 2007Pages 886-886PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES June 2007 Volume 58 Number 6 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 June 2007 Published in print 1 June 2007

The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewFull AccessThe Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel ParentingCaroline Fisher M.D., Ph.D.Caroline Fisher M.D., Ph.D.Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Jun 2007https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2007.58.6.886AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail In this book, Alice Miller presents the idea that childhood abuse manifests as adult physical illness. She holds that the Fourth Commandment—honor your father and mother—keeps both patients and therapists from addressing the parents' role in, and responsibility for, the abuse. Instead of validating the child's fury at her parents, the unwitting therapist may collude with the child in excusing her parents or demanding forgiveness for their inadequacy. Miller states that by doing this, the patient's anger is repressed and is expressed instead by physical ailments. A wise therapist will allow the patient to express anger at her parents directly during therapy and validate those feelings, allowing the patient to release her dysfunctional attachment to her abusers.That said, you needn't read the book at all, because it does not offer much else. Miller is a smart woman with valuable ideas, but this book falls short. There are three sections, a preface, an introduction to each section, and a postscript. The meat of the book is in the postscript, wherein Miller states her argument most cogently and sets forth her recommendations for effective treatment techniques. If you insist on reading the book, start there. The first section goes through a series of brief vignettes about famous people who died young and also had been abused as children. In this section I found myself wishing she had coauthored the book with Paul Harvey, because I, for one, need "the rest of the story." There is little detail in each vignette, sometimes to the point of leaving the reader hanging, and the argument is poorly supported by the data presented. The second section goes into more direct discussion of the ways in which the body harbors the effects of abuse, as well as a fair amount of autobiographical material. The final section, written as the diary of an adolescent girl, is a case study of anorexia. The girl is fictional, and the diary reads like, well, a fictional diary written by someone with an agenda.In her books, Alice Miller repeatedly asks that society consider the ill effects of parenting that is coercive, abusive, and humiliating. She asks that we consider the everyday, commonplace humiliations as well as the cases of gross abuse. She has been a champion for children and people who were abused as children. In this book, she puts forth a reasonable hypothesis, the truth of which many people will intuitively recognize from their own practices. However, the expansion of that hypothesis falls short.Dr. Fisher is affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester. FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 58Issue 6 June, 2007Pages 886-886PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES June 2007 Volume 58 Number 6 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 June 2007 Published in print 1 June 2007

?How Far am I Responsible??: Women and Morphinomania in Late-Nineteenth-Century Britain

TW ^ Then the governess Isabel Gordon recounts her introduction to the hypodermic injection of morphine in Richard Pryce's novel An Evil Spirit, she poses a challenge to the readers of her fictional diary. By requesting them to assign her responsibility for her morphine habituation to a precise moment in her narrative, the text defies them to assign responsibility to her at all. The idea that someone might not be responsible for such actions, but rather the victim of an illness, was new to Victorian readers. In the 1870s and 1880s they were learning of a new disease afflicting the upper classes of European society, especially women. Variously termed and morphinism in Britain, it was the compulsive, clandestine use of new hypodermic technology to inject morphine, a recently isolated alkaloid of opium. This illness differed significantly from the habitual opium ingestion represented as an eccentric, visionary delight and torment by Thomas De Quincey in his Confessions of an English OpiumEater (1821). Whereas De Quincey's text advertised his masculine scholastic and empirical authority to supply the deficiencies of a scanty medical literature, texts about women's morphinomania were largely written by medical men whose analyses mixed scandalized morality with scientific suggestion as they began to articulate a disease model of inebriety and later, addiction. Isabel's challenge to her readers thus cites a larger cultural shift in the perception that drug addiction, from

Les Carnets de la drôle de guerre de Jean-Paul Sartre : effets d'écriture, effets de lecture

As a soldier during the winter of 1939-40, Sartre kept a diary. An incomplete version of this diary was found and published, after Sartre's death, in MICHEL CONTAT ET JACQUES DEGUY : LES CARNETS DE LA DRÔLE DE GUERRE DE JEAN-PAUL SARTRE, EFFETS D'ÉCRITURE, EFFETS DE LECTURE The place these writings occupy in Sartre' s œuvre is examined from several points of view : chronological importance, textual interest, real events as opposed to the fictional diary of La Nausée, their place within Sartre's imaginative universe and their relation to the War Diary genre. The fate of these Carnets has turned out to be paradoxical : conceived of as an impossible book, they were read by a few friends and then forgotten.

La guerra del general Escobar

This frequently reprinted bestseller provoked strong reactions when it was first published eight years after Franco's death. Himself a leading Spanish thinker coming to terms with a permissive socialist society, Olaizola here explores the paradox of General - a Civil Guard and Franciscan tertiary who joined with communists and anarchists to defend the Republic against Franco's catholic crusade. Winner of the prestigious Planeta Prize, La Guerra del General Escobar is the fictional diary of the General as he awaits the death sentence in Barcelona. He reviews his experience of the civil war, the divided loyalties within his own family and the divisions that threatened to destroy the Republic. Unknown to Olaizola, the General had indeed kept a prison diary. In her critical introduction, Rosemary Clark discusses, among other things, how its remarkable similarities to the fictional diary add authority to Olaizola's exploration of the deeper significance of the Spanish Cicil War.