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The history of the city of Alexandria, Egypt is one of frequent conquest by different empires. The British took over in 1881 and remained...

Today, let’s talk about Justine, Lawrence Durrell’s 1957 book that begins his four-novel opus, The Alexandria Quartet. The other novels...

If you wanted to write a story about the adventures of an eleven-year-old boy taking a journey to a new home on an ocean liner in the...

So in The Cat’s Table, is one of the memories that the narrator has about his younger self a memory of sexual awakening—the time when he...

Last time, we talked about the omniscience of the narrator in Cat’s Table. The narrator, the older Canadian writer originally from Sri...

The Cat’s Table, like other stories by Michael Ondaatje, is episodic in structure. The term episodic fiction refers to a set of episodes...

This week, a new novel, Michael Ondaatje’s 2011 The Cat’s Table. It is the story of an adult narrator telling the story of a voyage taken...

The Unconsoled begins with Ryder, a famous pianist, arriving in an unnamed European city to perform a concert. Through more than five...

One of the features of Ishiguro’s Unconsoled is that it makes use of two forms of narration. The story begins with close first-person...

When I began this blog almost three years ago, I set out to write about particular features of stories I enjoyed, their narrational...

In Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled, just who are those who are unconsoled? The definition of the word “unconsoled” is a person or group...

My friends, what of the narrational style of The Unconsoled? After all, that’s what I typically write about. Most simply put, Unconsoled...

This week, a new story, best beloved, Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1995 novel, The Unconsoled. It is, essentially, the story of a concert pianist,...

In a further refinement of our journey with Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers, let’s look at some of the meanings the story contains. To...

What is the narrational style of Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers? The first chapter begins in close third person and in simple past...

“Valera had fallen back from his squadron and was cutting the wires of another rider’s lamp.” So begins Rachel Kushner’s 2013 novel The...

In Amongst Women, John McGahern—like any writer—tells the story using a particular narrational style. Let’s consider the opening...

Who am I? That’s a question that self-reflective people ask themselves again and again as they move through life. The answer is more than...

Immediately after the section in Amongst Women that depicts the last meeting between Moran and McQuaid, there is a paragraph break. Then...

Last week, we started thinking about the structure of Amongst Women—the way it establishes a present time at the beginning when Michael...