Book Review: Basic Elements of Narrative by David Herman, 2009. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. xvi + 249. ISBN 978 1 4051 4154 3.(pbk), 978 1 4051 4053 6 (hbk)
Abstract
Book Review Basic Elements of Narrative by David Herman, 2009. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. xvi + 249. ISBN 978 1 4051 4154 3.(pbk), 978 1 4051 4053 6 (hbk) SAGE Publications, Inc. 2011DOI: 10.1177/09639470110200010502 Nil Korkut Baskent University, Ankara, Turkey In her Afterword to the 2002 edition of Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics, Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan predicts the possibility in the near future of a fruitful interac- tion between classical and postclassical approaches to narrative studies – an interaction which involves not only a certain degree of compromise and modification but also a dialogical co-existence emphasizing the differences. Published seven years later, David Herman’s Basic Elements of Narrative can be regarded as a significant manifestation of Rimmon-Kenan’s foresight. Herman’s book is a very good example of recent scholarship on narrative, attempting to transcend the boundaries between widely different traditions and disciplines dealing with narrative and to propose a model which will apply meaning- fully to all narrative genres employing all kinds of modes and media. Herman adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach throughout, and his major aim of identifying the basic elements of narrative is significantly informed by theories from a wide variety of fields, from structuralist narratology, linguistics, psychology and sociology