This book explores the central fictional minds in three of Ian McEwan's most popular narratives. Mind presentation constitutes the main part of characterization in the second phase of McEwan's ...writing, where his plot structure depends to a large degree on the presentation of the characters' mental workings. In Amsterdam (1998), Atonement (2003), and On Chesil Beach (2007), the construction process of the fictional minds, the degree their functioning is impacted by their experiences, and the way their mental aspect controls their behavior and relationships is critical to the stories. Relying on insights and methods from cognitive narratology, this study follows two purposes: It firstly analyzes the function of fictional minds and their operational modes in these narratives. Secondly, it explores the impact of the characters' experiences on both their mental functioning and their behavior, especially with view of their relationships. Nayebpour reveals that the plot structure of these narratives highly depends on the lack of a sound balance between the two aspects of the represented minds (intermental/joint thought and intramental/individual thought) as well as on the dominance of the intramental one. The tragic atmosphere in these narratives, Nayebpour argues, is the result of this imbalance.
This paper examines the fictional minds' mental functioning in Ian McEwan's Amsterdam and On Chesil Beach. The study primarily depends on the terminology offered by Alan Palmer considering the ...operation of fictional minds. The paper argues that the initial fragile intermental units within the selected narratives disappear towards their ends because, encountering conflicts, the fictional minds tend to dissent intramentally. Therefore, these narratives can be read as representations of the breakdown process of the intermental units among the fictional minds. In Amsterdam, the incipient intermentality between Clive Linely and Vernon Halliday comes to its end when the two old friends' strong egocentrism and aspectuality lead them fundamentally towards disrupting intramental thoughts and actions. And in On Chesil Beach, the development of Edward Mayhew's and Florence Ponting's small intermental unit halts when their intermental or shared thoughts are replaced by their inflexible intramental dissents. In both cases, the fictional minds are presented as being unable of going beyond their own perspectives, which are essential for the formation and maintenance of the intermental units. Accordingly, this paper analyses the breakdown processes of the small intermental systems in the chosen narratives. Key Words fictional minds, intramental/intermental thought, Amsterdam, On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
Ingersoll explores Ian McEvan's novel Amsterdam as an example of what he calls "the Masculine Narrative Paradigm." In McEvan's novel, readers are drawn into the narrative's desire of the end, since ...it is the ending that confirms the meaning of the narrative.
City guide: Amsterdam Jarvis, James
Director (London, England : 1983),
02/2017, Letnik:
70, Številka:
5
Magazine Article
Make the most of your business trip down:ime by taking to water or two wheels in the Dutch capital Where to stay Located at Dam Square, the NH Collection Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky gives guests the ...opportunity to roll out of bed into the very centre of the city. The showpiece of the 451-room hotel is its winter garden, a lavish expanse which has kept faith with the original greenhouse which stood on its location - although it is now the place to eat breakfast. The concept here was for meat and fish to be served as sides, a 'flexitarian' approach that places vegetables and herbs front and centre of the meal and provides a welcome change from flesh-centric dining.
The acclaimed British novelist Ian McEwan begins his best-selling novel of friendship gone awry with the funeral services of a key off-stage presence, a sure indication that the talented author known ...in some circles as "Ian Macabre" is up to his old tricks again. Readers are well advised to be patient, however. The point of "Amsterdam" (Nan Talese||Doubleday, 193 pages, $23), we realize in short order, is not the kind of morbid deliberation for which McEwan is best known, but a work of wry social satire, and it is accomplished through the alchemy of a remarkably deft literary hand. The two men in early middle age huddled against the cold at Molly's funeral - Clive Linley, a noted composer commissioned by the British government to write a "Millennial Symphony," and the respected London newspaper editor Vernon Halliday - are very close friends, with a lot of shared history.
Beryl Bainbridge's novel Master Georgie was favoured by Britain's bookmakers to take the 20,000 pound ($52,000 Cdn) prize. But as is often the case with the Booker, the judges overlooked the ...favourite and selected Ian McEwan's Amsterdam. McEwan professed to be "quite stunned" at his victory, having twice before experienced rejection at the hand of the Booker. "My foreign secretary is a very long way from Douglas Hurd. Douglas appears to be wearing male clothes," McEwan noted when he met with journalists later.
Ian McEwan Head, Dominic
2007., 20130719, 2007, 2007-04-30, 2013-07-19
eBook
In this survey Ian McEwan emerges as one of those rare writers whose works have received both popular and critical acclaim. His novels grace the bestseller lists, and he is well regarded by critics, ...both as a stylist and as a serious thinker about the function and capacities of narrative fiction. McEwan’s novels treat issues that are central to our times: politics, and the promotion of vested interests; male violence and the problem of gender relations; science and the limits of rationality; nature and ecology; love and innocence; and the quest for an ethical worldview. Yet he is also an economical stylist: McEwan’s readers are called upon to attend, not just to the grand themes, but also to the precision of his spare writing. Although McEwan’s later works are more overtly political, more humane, and more ostentatiously literary than the early work, Dominic Head uncovers the continuity as well as the sense of evolution through the oeuvre. Head makes the case for McEwan’s prominence - pre-eminence, even - in the canon of contemporary British novelists.
