The Secret Life of Stories: From Don Quixote to Harry Potter, How Understanding Intellectual Disability Transforms the Way We Read
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.23 (564 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1479832731 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 240 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-03-14 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
For all readers, The Secret Life of Stories will fundamentally change the way we think about the way we read. In The Secret Life of Stories, Michael Bérubé tells a dramatically different tale, in a compelling account of how an understanding of intellectual disability can transform our understanding of narrative. Interweaving his own stories with readings of such texts as Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, and Philip K. Some argue that the capacity to understand narrative is innate to our species; others claim that while that might be so, the invention of writing then re-wired our brains. Armed only with the tools of close reading, Bérubé demonstrates t
Five Stars Beautifully written, important book.. "Mind expanding storytelling from a new angle" according to David Wineberg. One of the rewards of committing to read and review two or three new nonfiction books a week is that it forces me to expand my range. There is a continual flow of books I would not normally consider buying or reading. Whole categories of them. But my reading has led to all kinds of discoveries for me, and some of them light a fire for more. Here for example is a totally engaging book that demonstrates the very real power of the disabled (both physically and intellectually), both as characters in fiction and in their appreciation and interpretation of it. It’s an approach that has its own u. "Gobbledygook" according to Bartleby (scrivner). This book is everything that is wrong with academic scholarship. First of all, it appears that nothing can be "simply" said, the prose is a matrix of difficulty and unclarifying complexity that forces the reader to pay a great deal of attention for little reward, "What'd he say?" There is a lot to be said about physical and mental disabilities that is important and worthwhile, and much that is said here, rather peripherally, I would say, that is worthy of attention if you didn't have to wade through a jungle of lit. crit. and disability studies that, in my opinion, do not add much to each other
Michael Bérubé is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature and Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State University. He is the author of several books, including Employment of English:Theory, Jobs, and the Future of Literary Studies (NYU Press, 1997), The Left at War (NYU Press, 2009), The Secret Life of Stories is that rare book that manages to speak to its specialized academic audience while imagining and addressing a much broader readership. Berubehas crafted an accessible, if still rigorous, study of the way fiction grapples with intellectual disability."-Slant Magazine"The Secret Life of Storiesgives a reader the feeling of sitting in an engaging seminar with a witty, candid, and empathetic leader. Schweik,author of The U