Overview

This is the first single-author study of the genres and roots of popular literature in its relation to film and television, exploring the effects of academic snobbery on the teaching of popular literature.Designed for classroom use by students of literature and film (and their teachers), it offers case studies in quest literature, detective fiction, the status of the outlaw and outsider, and the interdependence of self, other and the uncanny.It challenges perceived notions of, and prejudices against, popular literature, and affirms its connection with the deepest human experiences.

Full Product Details

9781527513969

Table of Contents

Reviews

In his clear, acute and surprisingly passionate new book, Richard Pine makes the case for the importance of reading popular fiction not as mere escapism but as contemporary manifestations of myth. The stories that we tell ourselves, he says, are a way of making sense of the world and of human experience. Those which reach the largest audiences deserve better than critical neglect, and cry out instead for detailed, sympathetic examination. Arguably, all stories, viewed from the correct perspective, are the same story - that which Pine identifies as the quest , an aspect of Joseph Campbell's familiar hero's journey. From the earliest surviving narratives to the present day, near-identical tropes and scenarios recur: myth is the method of means by which the imagination of man makes sense of the perceived facts of his existence . There is in this much comfort but also, at least in Pine's reading, something more: a quality of the ritualistic, profoundly cathartic. The storyteller , he writes, is not unlike the tribal shaman ... through the ritual of storytelling he translates the sacred secrets into accessible and comprehensible signals. To forge his argument, Pine draws on numerous examples, from the past century or so of mainstream entertainment, moving from Allan Quatermain to Professor Challenger and Father Brown by way of A. J. Raffles and Bulldog Drummond. He is especially good on James Bond - an idea, rather than a person ... more of an enigma than his two-dimensional character permits - and on Hercule Poirot, whose perhaps repetitive adventures, whether they are formulaic or not ... obey the course of human emotions . Mostly, this is vivid and eloquent work, a sonorous and still necessary rallying cry. Jonathan Barnes, Times Literary Supplement, 2019

""In his clear, acute and surprisingly passionate new book, Richard Pine makes the case for the importance of reading popular fiction not as mere escapism but as contemporary manifestations of myth. The stories that we tell ourselves, he says, are a way of making sense of the world and of human experience. Those which reach the largest audiences deserve better than critical neglect, and cry out instead for detailed, sympathetic examination. Arguably, all stories, viewed from the correct perspective, are the same story – that which Pine identifies as ""the quest"", an aspect of Joseph Campbell's familiar hero's journey. From the earliest surviving narratives to the present day, near-identical tropes and scenarios recur: ""myth is the method of means by which the imagination of man makes sense of the perceived facts of his existence"". There is in this much comfort but also, at least in Pine's reading, something more: a quality of the ritualistic, profoundly cathartic. ""The storyteller"", he writes, ""is not unlike the tribal shaman … through the ritual of storytelling he translates the sacred secrets into accessible and comprehensible signals."" To forge his argument, Pine draws on numerous examples, from the past century or so of mainstream entertainment, moving from Allan Quatermain to Professor Challenger and Father Brown by way of A. J. Raffles and Bulldog Drummond. He is especially good on James Bond – ""an idea, rather than a person … more of an enigma than his two-dimensional character permits"" – and on Hercule Poirot, whose perhaps repetitive adventures, ""whether they are formulaic or not … obey the course of human emotions"". Mostly, this is vivid and eloquent work, a sonorous and still necessary rallying cry.""Jonathan Barnes, Times Literary Supplement, 2019

Author Information

Richard Pine is Director of the Durrell Library of Corfu, Greece, having worked previously in Irish broadcasting. His publications include Lawrence Durrell: The Mindscape (1994/2005), The Thief of Reason: Oscar Wilde and Modern Ireland (1995), The Diviner: The Art of Brian Friel (1999) and Greece through Irish Eyes (2015). He has edited several studies on the work of Lawrence Durrell and Creativity, Madness and Civilisation (2007) and The Literatures of War (2008). He is a guest lecturer at the Ionian University, Corfu, a columnist for The Irish Times and Kathimerini, and an obituarist for The Guardian.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available