Contemporary Fictions of Attention: Reading and Distraction in the Twenty-First Century

Description

With the supposed shortening of our attention spans, what future is there for fiction in the age of the internet? Contemporary Fictions of Attention rejects this discourse of distraction-crisis which suggests that the future of reading is in peril, and instead finds that contemporary writers construct 'fictions of attention' that find some value in states or moments of inattention. Through discussion of work by a diverse selection of writers, including Joshua Cohen, Ben Lerner, Tom McCarthy, Ali Smith, Zadie Smith, and David Foster Wallace, this book identifies how fiction prompts readers to become peripherally aware of their own attention. Contemporary Fictions of Attention locates a common interest in attention within 21st-century fiction and connects this interest to a series of debates surrounding ethics, temporality, the everyday, boredom, work, and self-discipline in contemporary culture.

Alice Bennett is senior lecturer in English Literature at Liverpool Hope University, UK. She has published on contemporary fiction in Critique, the Oxford Literary Review, and Textual Practice and is the author of Afterlife and Narrative in Contemporary Fiction (2012).

[A] fresh, compelling account of the forms of attention reading can foster ... [a] thoughtful study. * Times Literary Supplement * In her careful readings of works (nonfiction as well as fiction) by David Foster Wallace, Joshua Cohen, Ali Smith, Tom McCarthy, Zadie Smith, and Ben Lerner, Bennett identifies the stylistic techniques and broad array of topics that these authors have employed to highlight attention itself as a major subject in contemporary letters. Ideally, readers will leave this book with a renewed interest in these authors, as well as a respect for the importance of paying attention to attention in reading practices. Summing Up: Highly recommended. * CHOICE * [P]aying attention to the texture and rhythm of your own reading alongside Bennett's arguments makes for a surprisingly refreshing and generative reading experience. * C21 Literature *