Markku Lehtimäki

The book explores environmental issues in twenty-first-century Anglophone fiction and how those issues are dealt with by specific literary means. It proposes a reciprocal relationship between nature and narrative—the idea according to which nature both informs and inspires artistic creations, while literary designs and rhetoric also shape our ideas and perceptions of the natural environment. It is argued that in order to address design and rhetoric in environmental texts, we need a close analysis of those world-shaping functions of literary narratives that unite ecocritical and narratological interests. The author presents readings of contemporary novels and their varying ways of seeing nature through narrative devices and fictional minds. The novels discussed in the book are Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, Toni Morrison’s A Mercy, Ian McGuire’s The North Water, Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna, Paul Harding’s Tinkers and Enon, J. M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello, Ian McEwan’s Solar, and Jenny Offill’s Weather.

Kattava tutkimus nostaa keskiöön Sofi Oksasen teosten muodon, kun aiemmin niiden vastaanotossa on keskitytty lähinnä tekijän persoonaan ja tarinoiden todellisuuspohjaan. Missä määrin romaanit ovat teemoiltaan samanlaisia mutta tyyliltään ja keinoiltaan erilaisia? Miten kirjailija pyrkii muodon avulla tuottamaan merkityksiä? Teos on ensimmäinen suomenkielinen kokonaisesitys retorisesta kertomusteoriasta.

The book explores environmental issues in twenty-first-century Anglophone fiction and how those issues are dealt with by specific literary means. It proposes a reciprocal relationship between nature and narrative—the idea according to which nature both informs and inspires artistic creations, while literary designs and rhetoric also shape our ideas and perceptions of the natural environment. It is argued that in order to address design and rhetoric in environmental texts, we need a close analysis of those world-shaping functions of literary narratives that unite ecocritical and narratological interests. The author presents readings of contemporary novels and their varying ways of seeing nature through narrative devices and fictional minds. The novels discussed in the book are Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, Toni Morrison’s A Mercy, Ian McGuire’s The North Water, Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna, Paul Harding’s Tinkers and Enon, J. M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello, Ian McEwan’s Solar, and Jenny Offill’s Weather.