On Making Fiction: Frankenstein and the Life of Stories

Description

Fiction is generally understood to be a fascinating, yet somehow deficient affair, merely derivative of reality. What if we could, instead, come up with an affirmative approach that takes stories seriously in their capacity to bring forth a substance of their own? Iconic texts such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and its numerous adaptations stubbornly resist our attempts to classify them as mere representations of reality. Friederike Danebrock shows how these texts insist that we take them seriously as agents and interlocutors in our world- and culture-making activities. Drawing on this analysis, she develops a theory of narrative fiction as a generative practice. Cover Half title About the Author Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Strange(r) Things: Fiction and Frankenstein “Voodoo Metaphysics”? Towards a New Sense of Make‐Believe Endlessly Transparent? Frankenstein, Literary Criticism, andtheLogic of Reflection The Transformation of Stories: Adaptation,Mediation,andtheReal ofIntertextuality Figures, Repetition, Company: WheretoLookforWhatFrankensteinDoes Part One: Figures Narrative Interest and the Body No Body, no Story… Difficult Material Figures Speak and Be Truth, Judgment, Fiction Physicality and Perspective Narrative Architecture Voices and Images Productive Foldings The Body of Narrative Plot Contingencies, Technological and Organic The Substance of Fiction Part One: Coda Part Two: Repetition Sequels: Going Forward, Looking Back That Was Not the End At All A Resurrection in Three Parts Generation without Origin Traces, Path‐Breakers Begin and End Operation in Two Directions Repeating Repetition: Series and Singularity Series and Adaptations Repetition Unbound Creature No. 3 Making Memories Tracing the Individual Repetition, High and Low Being and Being‐About Surfaces and Simulacra Beyond Sovereign Imitation Part Two: Coda Part Three: Company Imperfection and Collaboration You Will Be You Again Double Casting I Ontology of Non‐Self‐Coincidence Existence as Production Collaborative Agency Strange Intimacies: Vulnerability and Liberation Intimacy Inhibited Feral Woman A More Cryptic Feminist Text Vulnerability and Imagination Double Casting II Address and Response Both Strange and Familiar Genuine Transformations Part Three: Coda To Conclude “Love Your Monsters” Works Cited