Thomas, Scarlett (2011) Our Tragic Universe. Canongate Books Ltd, Edinburgh, 448 pp. ISBN 978-1-84767-129-5. (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:40648)
| The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided. |
Abstract
Could a story save your life? If Kelsey Newman's theory about the end of time is true, we are all going to live forever. But who would want that? Certainly not Meg, a bright spark trapped in a hopeless relationship. But if she can work out the connection between a wild beast on Dartmoor, a ship in a bottle, the science of time a knitting pattern for the shape of the universe, she might just find a way out.
| Item Type: | Book |
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| Additional information: | Our Tragic Universe explores the way we construct the stories we tell ourselves and others, and asks whether it is worth trying to ‘make sense’ of the world, if sense has to be a narrative with a hero at its centre. It continues a thematic project begun with The End of Mr. Y. In that novel, people are trapped in language. In this one the characters are trapped by narrative. However, some of them do try to find ways of escaping. They explore ideas like the ‘storyless story’, and wonder about the differences between Chekhov and Tolstoy, tragedy and comedy, living and dreaming. Without being too directly metafictional, the narration tries to help the characters escape from the novel in which they are placed. Our Tragic Universe also dramatises research questions around discourses of religion and science and connects each with different methods of storytelling. The novel does not construct an argument between two ‘sides’, but rather tries to hold a triangular conversation between science, ‘rational spirituality’ and faith (as distinct from religion). What is more truthful: sense or non-sense? What provides and guarantees meaning – the author, the reader or the text itself? Is meaning always preferable to non-meaning? In what situations might this not be the case?; |
| Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PE English philology and language |
| Divisions: | Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of English |
| Depositing User: | Scarlett Thomas |
| Date Deposited: | 07 Mar 2014 00:05 UTC |
| Last Modified: | 16 Nov 2021 10:15 UTC |
| Resource URI: | https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/40648 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes) |
University of Kent Author Information
Thomas, Scarlett.
| Creator's ORCID: |
 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8382-451X
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