Nature and Narrative

Rhetoric and Design in Contemporary Fiction

Markku Lehtimäki

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040359303
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism for Comparative Literature
• Index: Literature

The book explores environmental issues in twenty-first-century Anglophone fiction and how those issues are dealt with by specific literary means. It proposes a reciprocal relationship between nature and narrative—the idea according to which nature both informs and inspires artistic creations, while literary designs and rhetoric also shape our ideas and perceptions of the natural environment. It is argued that in order to address design and rhetoric in environmental texts, we need a close analysis of those world-shaping functions of literary narratives that unite ecocritical and narratological interests. The author presents readings of contemporary novels and their varying ways of seeing nature through narrative devices and fictional minds. The novels discussed in the book are Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, Toni Morrison's A Mercy, Ian McGuire's The North Water, Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna, Paul Harding's Tinkers and Enon, J. M. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello, Ian McEwan's Solar, and Jenny Offill's Weather.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Endorsement Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 The Natural and the Unnatural: History and Anamorphosis in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall
• 2 Black and White Geographies: Seeing and Writing the New World in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy
• 3 Imagi(ni)ng the Arctic: Historical Narrative and Visual Poetics in Ian McGuire’s The North Water
• 4 Liquid Identities: Water and Storytelling in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna
• 5 A Heart Open to Nature: Experience, Memory, and Time in Paul Harding’s Tinkers and Enon
• 6 Ethics and Embodiment: Realism, Ideas, and Animal Rights in J. M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello
• 7 A Rhetoric of Climate Change: Comedy, Character, and Progression in Ian McEwan’s Solar
• 8 Living on Multiple Planes: Daily Life, Global Crisis, and Narrative Fragmentation in Jenny Offill’s Weather
• 9 Conclusion
• References
• Index