New Anatomy of Storyworlds: What Is, What If, as If [Hardback]

"Uses a broad set of works-from Sokal's hoax, to Maus, from Saussure to Barthes, from Kafka to virtual reality-to ground narratology in the concept of world and interrogate key subjects such as narrator, plot, character, fiction, mimesis, and diegesis"--

Ryan, an independent scholar and author, examines the implications of the concept of "world" for narratology, showing that for a text to be narrative it must define what the world is through its characters, objects, and events that purport to represent the real world; use what-if thinking to create imaginary worlds; and create an acceptance of the narrative as true. She considers different definitions of truth; different theories of fiction, including her own theory; and standard conceptions of the narrator as a mandatory component of narratives in comparison with new theories regarding narrators as optional. She then discusses different conceptions of fictional characters; cheap plot tricks, plot holes, and narrative design and their functionality for the story; Plato's concepts of mimesis and diegesis; parallel worlds; texts that create logically impossible worlds; virtual worlds; and transmedia worlds. Annotation ©2022 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

Grounds narratology in the concept of world to propose an alternative to the rhetorical, feminist, unnatural, and cognitive approaches that currently dominate the field.

The question of how narratives actually do the work of world-building transcends disciplines: from cosmology to philosophy, digital culture, popular culture, and literary theory. In A New Anatomy of Storyworlds, Marie-Laure Ryan investigates the narratological importance of the concept of world in its various manifestations. She uses a wide array of works—from Sokal’s hoax to Maus, from Saussure to Barthes, from Kafka to virtual reality—to interrogate key narratological concepts. By revisiting and redefining concepts such as narrator, plot, character, fictionality, mimesis, and diegesis, Ryan reexamines the major controversies that have enlivened narratology: Does narrative necessarily involve a narrator? Is the notion of implied author useful? Do texts that challenge our experience of the real world require a different narratology? Is the distinction between fictional and factual narratives gradual or binary? Ultimately, Ryan grounds narratology in the concept of world to propose an alternative to the rhetorical, feminist, unnatural, and cognitive approaches that currently dominate the field, thus broadening the frame through which we view story and world-building.