The pragmatics of insignificance : Chekhov, Zoshchenko, Gogol
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The pragmatics of insignificance : Chekhov, Zoshchenko, Gogol
(Studies of the Harriman Institute)
Stanford University Press, 1993
Available at 5 libraries
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  Hyogo
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  Wakayama
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  Okayama
  Hiroshima
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  Tokushima
  Kagawa
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  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
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  Okinawa
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Note
"Studies of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University"--T.p.verso
Includes bibliographical references (p. [259]-275) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
What makes a tale worth telling? What makes a text worth reading? When is a detail significant and when extraneous? And how much irrelevant detail can a reader take in stride? This book addresses the question of tellability by looking at texts that raise the question themselves, works by Anton Chekhov, Mikhail Zoshchenko, and Nikolai Gogol. The author examines closely both the works of the three authors and their readers' responses to them, emphasizing the pragmatic predicament of readers confronted with textual material that confounds their sense of import and tempts them to quit reading. She also raises the vexed question of reading 'for pleasure and profit.' The book accounts systematically for why Chekhov's 'trivia' works so well and speculates provocatively about why Gogol's does not. It also fills a major gap in the English-language scholarship on Zoshchenko, most of which concentrates almost exclusively on his stylistic idiosyncrasies; this book locates Zoshchenko's appeal in the iconoclastic structure and content of his miniatures.
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