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All Outputs (11)

Trailing Postmodernism: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Zadie Smith’s NW, and the Metamodern (2018)
Journal Article
Bentley. (2018). Trailing Postmodernism: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Zadie Smith’s NW, and the Metamodern. English Studies, 723-743. https://doi.org/10.1080/0013838X.2018.1510611

This article examines David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (2004) and Zadie Smith's NW (2012) against recent theories of the post-postmodern. It argues that although both texts can be seen to be gesturing towards a reconstructive relationship with the absolu... Read More about Trailing Postmodernism: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Zadie Smith’s NW, and the Metamodern.

Chapter 2. Questing for the post-postmodern: David Mitchell’s number9dream (2018)
Book Chapter
Bentley, N. (2018). Chapter 2. Questing for the post-postmodern: David Mitchell’s number9dream. In David Mitchell: Contemporary Critical Perspectives (39-52). Bloomsbury Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474262132.0008

Nick Bentley This chapter argues that number9dream represents a quest narrative in terms of both content and form. The novel begins by inhabiting the postmodernity of late-twentieth-century Tokyo, a setting in which the main character, Eiji Miyake, s... Read More about Chapter 2. Questing for the post-postmodern: David Mitchell’s number9dream.

Contemporary British Fiction: Readers' Guides to Essential Criticism (2017)
Book
Bentley, N. (2017). Contemporary British Fiction: Readers' Guides to Essential Criticism. Palgrave Macmillan

This essential guide provides a comprehensive survey of the most important debates in the criticism and research of contemporary British fiction. Nick Bentley analyses the criticism surrounding a range of British novelists including Monica Ali, Marti... Read More about Contemporary British Fiction: Readers' Guides to Essential Criticism.

The Novel Sequence (2016)
Book Chapter
Bentley. (2016). The Novel Sequence. In P. Boxall, & B. Cheyette (Eds.), The Oxford History of the Novel in English, Volume 7: British and Irish Fiction Since 1940 (258--271). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198749394.003.0017

This chapter examines the novel sequence. The novel sequence has been an important part of British and Irish literary output in the period since 1940, with examples in all the major genres and modes of fiction. The post-Second World War period repres... Read More about The Novel Sequence.

'Unanchored fragments of print': Lessing’s Experiments with Drama and Poetry in the Late 1950s (2015)
Journal Article
Bentley, & Bentley, N. (2015). 'Unanchored fragments of print': Lessing’s Experiments with Drama and Poetry in the Late 1950s

The latter years of the 1950s represent a period in which Lessing is experimenting with literary forms that extend beyond narrative fiction. In 1958 she produced the play Each to His Own Wilderness and the following year published Fourteen Poems. Bot... Read More about 'Unanchored fragments of print': Lessing’s Experiments with Drama and Poetry in the Late 1950s.

Writing 1950s London: Narrative Strategies in Colin MacInnes's City of Spades and Absolute Beginners (2003)
Journal Article
Bentley, N. (2003). Writing 1950s London: Narrative Strategies in Colin MacInnes's City of Spades and Absolute Beginners. Literary London: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Representation of London, 1(2),

Colin MacInnes is a 1950s writer who has largely been overlooked in recent critical analyses of the period.[1] His writing represents a radical experiment with narrative forms and genres that corresponds to his investigation of the submerged worlds... Read More about Writing 1950s London: Narrative Strategies in Colin MacInnes's City of Spades and Absolute Beginners.