Pulp: Reading Popular FictionPulp brings together in one volume chapters on the bestseller, detective fiction, popular romance, science fiction and horror. It combines a lucid and accessible account of the cultural theories that have informed the study of popular fiction with detailed readings of particularly Jackie Collins, Jilly Cooper, Colin Dexter, William Gibson, Stephen King, Iain Banks, Terry McMillan and Walter Mosley. Scott McCracken argues that popular fiction serves a vital function in the late twentieth century: it provides us with the means to construct a workable sense of self in the face of the disorientating pressures of modernity. |
Contents
Section 1 | 1 |
Section 2 | 19 |
Section 3 | 50 |
Section 4 | 75 |
Section 5 | 102 |
Section 6 | 128 |
Section 7 | 154 |
Section 8 | 183 |
Section 9 | 189 |
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Common terms and phrases
Adorno ambivalent argued audience becomes bestseller boundaries Bourdieu Cameron Chapter context contradictions cyberpunk cyborg defined described desire detective fiction detective narrative detective novel detective story detective's discussion Easy Easy's example experience explore family saga fantasy fear feminine feminist film formula romance Fredric Jameson Freud gender genre gothic horror heroine historical Hollywood Husbands Ibid identity interpretation Jackie Collins Jilly Cooper kind lesbian limits London masculine mass culture means metaphor Mills & Boon modern Mosley Mouse Mouse's murder mystery negative theories numbers given passage Penguin pleasure political popular culture popular fiction popular romance popular text position possible postmodern reader of popular reading popular fiction relation relationship represents role Sabrina science fiction sense sexual social society Sorrel stereotype structure suggests symbolic order Theodor Adorno theories of mass thriller transgression twentieth century Uncanny University Press utopian V. I. Warshawski violence Walter Benjamin Walter Mosley women writes