Overview

This first book-length study on the black humor in Raymond Carver's work includes valuable interpretations of Carver's aesthetics as well as the psycho-social implications of his short fiction. The presence of an indeterminate menace in the oppressive situations of black humor in Carver - as compared to a European tradition of existentialist writing and his American predecessors including Twain, Heller, Barth and others - is mitigated through humor so it is not dominant. As a result, a subtle promise emerges in the characters' lives.

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9780820486208

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Reviews

« Jingqiong Zhou's Black Humor in Raymond Carver's Short Fiction is impressive. The writing style is informative. The generalizations are significant, and well supported by insightful examples. I am especially impressed by the intertextuality exhibited in Raymond Carver's short fiction. I was amazed at the ties that the author developed between Carver and Mark Twain, Natbanael West, Sherwood Anderson, John Barth, Vladimir Nabokov, Ken Kesey, Joseph Heller, Ernest Hemingway, and Albert Camus. I am also impressed at the vernacular rhetorical strategies that Carver uses, including black humor, jokes and joking stories, and open endings. -- Don L. F. Nilsen

Jingqiong Zhou's Black Humor in Raymond Carver's Short Fiction is impressive. The writing style is informative. The generalizations are significant, and well supported by insightful examples. I am especially impressed by the intertextuality exhibited in Raymond Carver's short fiction. I was amazed at the ties that the author developed between Carver and Mark Twain, Nathanael West, Sherwood Anderson, John Barth, Vladimir Nabokov, Ken Kesey, Joseph Heller, Ernest Hemingway, and Albert Camus. I am also impressed at the vernacular rhetorical strategies that Carver uses, including black humor, jokes and joking stories, and open endings. (Don L. F. Nilsen, Historian, International Society for Humor Studies, English Department, Arizona State University)

Author Information

The Author: Jingqiong Zhou is Associate Professor at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, People's Republic of China. She obtained her doctorate from the University of Hong Kong and teaches graduate-level American fiction and undergraduate-level American studies courses. Zhou is also the author of Contemporary American Culture and Society (2003).

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