Peter J. Rabinowitz

The Turn of the Glass Key : Popular Fiction as Reading Strategy

Litterature populaire, litterature savante : la determination generique des strategies de lecture dans le roman anglo-saxon des annees 1920-1960

Truth or Inconsequence: A Reply to James Phelan

of fictionality (Walsh, ch. 4); there is nothing remotely problematic about imagining events you have not witnessed, or thoughts you could not know of even in principle. Still, might an appeal to convention redeem Benjy’s section of The Sound and the Fury for the communication model? Perhaps, but on even worse terms. In this case, there is no established critical concept to justify, so it is purely a matter of saving the theory. Worth it?

A Slice of Watermelon: The Rhetoric of Digression in Chekhov’s ‘The Lady with the Dog’

In September 1846, Johann Gottfried Galle and Heinrich d’Arrest first observed the planet later called Neptune. Except among astronomers, this event barely registered at the time, and even now, it has had no impact on literary studies. It was surely not in Chekhov’s mind when he introduced a curious non-event a quarter of the way through ‘The Lady with the Dog’ (1899). After a week’s suave flirtation, Gurov, a practised ladies’ man, finally makes it into the hotel room of the inexperienced Anna Sergeyevna; but he finds her response to their sexual encounter ‘odd and disconcerting’. Anna pulls out the cliche, ‘You will never respect me anymore’; Gurov finds himself at a loss. ‘On the table was a watermelon. Gurov cut himself a slice from it and began slowly eating it. At least half an hour passed in silence’ (1979: 225).