Outside, America The Temporal Turn in Contemporary American Fiction [Hardcover]

The idea of the outside as a space of freedom has always been central in the literature of the United States. This concept still remains active in contemporary American fiction; however, its function is being significantly changed.Outside, Americaargues that, among contemporary American novelists, a shift of focus to the temporal dimension is taking place. No longer a spatial movement, the quest for the outside now seeks to reach the idea of time as a force of difference, a la Deleuze, by which the current subjectivity is transformed. In other words, the concept is taking a temporal turn.

Discussing eight novelists, including Don DeLillo, Richard Powers, Paul Theroux, and Annie Proulx, each of whose works describe forces of given identitiesmasculine identity, historical temporality, and power, etc.which block quests for the outside, Fujii shows how the outside in these texts ceases to be a spatial idea. With due attention to critical and social contexts, the book aims to reveal a profound shift in contemporary American fiction.

Introduction: America and Outside /Part I: Space of Outside /1. Dear American Road: The End of the Road in Annie Proulx'sPostcardsand Richard Powers'sOperation Wandering Soul /2. Where the Tides Rise and Ebb: Power and America in Steve Erickson'sRubicon Beach /3. Journey to the End of the Father: Battlefield of Masculinity in Paul Theroux'sThe Mosquito Coast /4. The American Traveler's Love And Solitude: The Pragmatics of the Double in William T. Vollmann'sThe Atlas /Part II: Practices of Outside /5. Nietzsche, Crime Fiction, and Question of Masculinity in Denis Johnson'sAlready Dead: A California Gothic /6. A Man with a Green Memory: Cinema, War and Freedom in Stephen Wright'sMeditations in Green /7. Time and Again: The Outside and the Narrative Pragmatics inThe Body Artist /8. WWDD (What Would Disney Do)?: Cinematic Field and Narrative Act inlã3