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1	Cultural Memory in Contemporary Narrative: Andrea Camilleri's Montalbano Series Eckert, Elgin January 2012 (has links) This dissertation discusses Italy’s bestselling author Andrea Camilleri’s series of Montalbano crime novels. It poses the question of what makes Camilleri’s series so successful in the contemporary literary marketplace and if his success is a representation of Italian culture (and by extension, the postmodern or post-postmodern Italian literary scene). This dissertation deals with Camilleri and his success from a narrative literary point of view. It examines Camilleri’s work from several different perspectives, placing it within the vaster context of Italian literature while also taking a meticulous look at Camilleri as the author who has managed to free a literary genre from its previous confines and opened new boundaries for Italian literature. The dissertation demonstrates how Andrea Camilleri provides a "security blanket" for his readers: by including many elements of a common cultural memory, he keeps his readers safely anchored. These elements include a long list of recurring characters that function almost like the chorus in a Greek play. Certain thematic elements, such as Montalbano’s perpetual search for Justice, and his struggle to combine the written law with the law of men are a topoi of Western literature, as are the antonyms eros/thanatos as well as food and death, which Camilleri heavily employs. The Sicilian author manages to root his work deeply within a literary tradition through direct citations, and explicit and implicit references to the canon, but also breaks new ground and manages to move Italian literature a step forward. In front of this apparently nostalgic background, the Sicilian author plays with and invents many new components in his works, satisfying thus the Italian need for the "known" with the pleasure of a discovery of the "unknown" or the "new", which is a major reason for his success. Camilleri participates in a (post)modern shift of horizons, but does not radically challenge his reader’s "expectations". His series of Montalbano mysteries presents literature of a high level that almost by chance becomes part of an "immediate" literary canon, but does not set out with the ambition to become part of "the canon". / Romance Languages and Literatures Romance literature Language Andrea Camilleri Cultural Memory giallo Italian literature Montalbano mystery novels
2	Mystery writers in foreign settings: The literary devices and methods used to portray foreign geographies Engar, Amy Kimball 14 March 2005 (has links) (PDF) A sense of place is important to the construction, believability and success of regional mystery novels. Authentic representation of place is challenging if an author is not originally from the area being portrayed. Despite this, some authors are able to depict foreign places more comprehensively and realistically than others. Professor Gary Hausladen of the University of Nevada, Reno identifies: narrative description, dialogue, iconography, and attention to detail as the basic literary devices that convey sense of place. This thesis questions the manner in which successful mystery novelists writing about foreign places meet Hausladen's model. Specifically, do they use all four of the literary devices, which are most commonly used, which are consciously used, and what research methods and resources do they use to incorporate the literary devices. Primary and secondary data are collected through interviews and literary analyses. It is found that these authors use all four of the prescribed literary devices, that some of the literary devices are more challenging to use than others, that place establishing literary techniques are important to the authors and that the authors seek to incorporate sense of place through diverse types of intensive research. geography literature sense of place literary device foreign mystery novels Lindsey Davis Elizabeth George Dorothy Gilman Lynda Robinson Geography
3	Controversial Politics, Conservative Genre: Rex Stout's Archie-Wolfe Duo and Detective Fiction's Conventional Form Cannon, Ammie 15 June 2006 (has links) (PDF) Rex Stout maintained his popular readership despite the often controversial and radical political content expressed in his detective fiction. His political ideals often made him many enemies. Stances such as his ardent opposition to censorship, racism, Nazism, Germany, Fascism, Communism, McCarthyism, and the unfettered FBI were potentially offensive to colleagues and readers from various political backgrounds. Yet Stout attempted to present radical messages via the content of his detective fiction with subtlety. As a literary traditionalist, he resisted using his fiction as a platform for an often extreme political agenda. Where political messages are apparent in his work, Stout employs various techniques to mute potentially offensive messages. First, his hugely successful bantering Archie Goodwin-Nero Wolfe detective duo—a combination of both the lippy American and the tidy, sanitary British detective schools—fosters exploration, contradiction, and conflict between political viewpoints. Archie often rejects or criticizes Wolfe's extreme political viewpoints. Second, Stout utilizes the contradictions between values that occur when the form of detective fiction counters his radical political messages. This suggests that the form of detective fiction (in this case the conventional patterns and attitudes reinforced by the genre) is as important as the content (in this case the muted political message or the lack of overt politics) in reinforcing or shaping political, economic, moral, and social viewpoints. An analysis of the novels The Black Mountain (1954) and The Doorbell Rang (1965) and the novellas "Not Quite Dead Enough" and "Booby Trap" (1944) from Stout's Nero Wolfe series demonstrates his use of detective fiction for both the expression of political viewpoints and the muting of those political messages. Rex Stout detective fiction mystery novels Nero Wolfe Archie Goodwin politics and literature The Black Mountain The Doorbell Rang Not Quite Dead Enough Booby Trap Too Many Cooks The Illustrious Dunderheads J. Edgar Hoover FBI COINTELPRO Senator Joseph McCarthy Fascism Communism Nazism racism censorship Democracy Individualism isolationism WWII conventional values form content English Language and Literature

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