Mythical Monsters: Scariest Creatures from Legends ... by Chris Mcnab

Mythical Monsters: Scariest Creatures from Legends ... by Chris Mcnab

The fifteen essays collected in Hard Reading argue, first, that science fiction has its own internal rhetoric, relying on devices such as neologism, dialogism, semantic shifts, the use of unreliable narrators. It is a high-information genre which does not follow the Flaubertian ideal of le mot juste, the right word, preferring le mot impr visible, the unpredictable word. Both ideals shun the facilior lectio, the easy reading, but for different reasons and with different effects. The essays argue further that science fiction derives much of its energy from engagement with vital intellectual issues in the soft sciences, especially history, anthropology, the study of different cultures, with a strong bearing on politics. Both the rhetoric and the issues deserve to be taken much more seriously than they have been in academia, and in the wider world. Each essay is further prefaced by an autobiographical introduction. These explain how the essays came to be written and in what ways they (often) proved controversial. They, and the autobiographical introduction to the whole book, create between them a memoir of what it was like to be a committed fan, from teenage years, and also an academic struggling to find a place, at a time when a declared interest in science fiction and fantasy was the kiss of death for a career in the humanities.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780439854795
ISBN 10	0439854792
Title	Mythical Monsters: Scariest Creatures from Legends ...
Author	Chris Mcnab
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Scholastic US
Year published	2006-01-01
Number of pages	96
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable