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Fantastic Odysseys Selected Essays from the Twenty-Second International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts
Mary Pharr
ISBN: 0-313-32324-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-32324-9
192 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 3/30/2003
List Price: $79.95 (UK Sterling Price: £55.95)
Discount Price: $39.98 Sale Price for U.S. Customers Only. Save 50%. Ends 12/31/2009.
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Description: Although the odyssey has long been recognized as a crucial characteristic of the epic, scant attention has been paid to it as a telling device within other forms of the fantastic. Fantastic Odysseys supports the long-held awareness of the odyssey metaphor as an integral function within literary discourse, one that demonstrates a continuum of essential change in human cultural experience. By shifting the focus of that awareness from the epic narrative to a range of other fantastic narratives, this collection challenges critical and literary boundaries while it expands the meaning and value of the odyssey metaphor through the examination of a variety of works.

Divided into four sections, the essays cover the odyssey as a journey toward knowledge, identity, transformation, and destiny. Beginning and ending with a critical nod toward 2001: A Space Odyssey, these sections map the narrative trails left by odysseys imagined across time and space, mode and genre: from early French theatre to postmodern film, from Jewish short-story fantasies to Latin American narrative, from quest novels to futuristic crime thrillers, from German Romanticism to Spanish satire. Among the authors studied are Borges, Milás, Kafka, Malamud, Hoffmann, Ende, Straub, King, McKillip, Tiptree, Robinson, and Clark; among the films are Them!, The Rapture, American Psycho, and Fight Club. This unique collection increases our understanding of the odyssey as it is represented in various forms and genres.
Table of Contents:
  • Acknowledgments
    Introduction by Mary Pharr
    The Odyssey as a Journey Toward Knowledge
    Bodies in Cyberspace: ICFA Guest Scholar Talk by Brooks London
    Science of the Times: The Charlatan's Odyssey in Early Modern France by Sharon D. King
    Time and the Fantastic: Simultaneity in Borges, Cortazar, Lezama Lima, and Paz by Sharon L. Sieber
    Criminal Predisposition: Futuristic Crime Thrillers and Biogovernance by Neil Gerlach
    Warning: In Case of Rapture, Just Say "No" by Gene Doty
    The Odyssey as a Journey Toward Identity
    The Mindless Body and the Bodiless Mind: Gyrations of Body, Mind, and Soul in Short-Story Fantasies by Jewish Writers by Marilyn Jurich
    The Use, Misuse, and Abuse of Power: The Wizards of Patricia A McKillip by Christine Mains
    Resisting the Mystique: Women in 1950s Science-Fiction Films by Susan A. George
    Just a Nobody: Horror Through Anonymity in American Psycho by Alison M. Kelly
    Fight Club: Bringing Frankenstein into the New Millenium by Leonard G. Heldreth
    The Odyssey as a Journey Toward Transformation
    Magic, Myth, and Ritual in E.T.A. Hoffmann's Der Goldne Topf by April C. Athmann
    Requiem, Progress, and Apocalypse in James Tiptree Jr.'s "Slow Music" by William A. Clemente
    Slime and the Sublime: Transcendence and De-evolution in Peter Straub's and Arthur Machen's Fiction by Bernadette Lynn Bosky
    When Books Are for the Birds: Late Capitalism and Barbarity in Juan Jose Millas's The Alphabetical Order by Dale Knickerbocker
    The Odyssey as a Journey Toward Destiny
    Ludwig Tieck and Michael Ende: The Old Man of the (Moving) Mountain by David B. Dickens
    Martian Odysseys: Travel and Narrative Unrest in Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars by Amy M. Clarke
    A Requiem for Ray Brower: Encountering Death in Stephen King's "The Body" by Keith Philip Silva
    2001: A Space Odyssey and the Betrayal of Language by Fred D. White
    Selected Bibliography
    Index
    About the Contributors
About the Author: MARY PHARR is Professor of English at Florida Southern College. There she teaches classes ranging from Romanticism to film. She has served as a member of the Speakers Bureau for the Florida Humanities Council and as an officer in the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts. The author of both journal articles and book chapters in the field of fantastic fiction and film, she has also co-edited the anthology The Blood Is the Life: Vampires in Literature (1999).
LCC Class: 809
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