32 research outputs found
âsome kind of thing it aint us but yet its in usâ: David Mitchell, Russell Hoban, and metafiction after the millennium
This article appraises the debt that David Mitchellâs Cloud Atlas owes to the novels of Russell Hoban, including, but not limited to, Riddley Walker. After clearly mapping a history of Hobanâs philosophical perspectives and Mitchellâs inter-textual genre-impersonation practice, the article assesses the degree to which Mitchellâs metatextual methods indicate a nostalgia for by-gone radical aesthetics rather than reaching for new modes of its own. The article not only proposes several new backdrops against which Mitchellâs novel can be read but also conducts the first in-depth appraisal of Mitchellâs formal linguistic replication of Riddley Walker