Novelistic Inquiries into the Mind

Novelistic Inquiries into the Mind traces the multiple relations between the mind and the contemporary novel. The contributors here examine various types of narrative fiction, ranging from the postmodern novels of J. M. Coetzee and Ian McEwan through the experimental prose of Leslie Scalapino to the popular fiction of James Dashner and Christopher Moore. On the one hand, they investigate novelistic representations of various mind-related issues, including different states of consciousness, Alzheimer’s disease, thought experiments and formation of the self. On the other, by analysing and evaluating in these contexts such narrative devices as unreliable narration, development of conceptual networks or multimodal integration of verbal and non-verbal semiotic resources, they exemplify the multiplicity of techniques whereby the novel can explore the intricacies of mental processes.

Taken together, the essays collected here demonstrate the potential of the novel as genre for representing the mind. In its exploration of the problems involved in the linguistic construction of reality, the cognitive function of art and the uncertain status of consciousness, the contemporary novel thus reflects the mind’s urge to understand itself, as well as possible meanings of its own perceptions, creations and projections.