Article

Beating the Binaries

Author: Theodore D. Kharpertian (Hudson County Community College)

Abstract

Frank Palmeri's Satire in Narrative offers a synchronic and diachronic study of narrative satire by means of an analysis of five texts with problematic generic status: Petronius's Satyricon, Swift's Tale of a Tub, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Melville's Confidence-Man, and Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49. In identifying and elaborating a set of generic features and strategies in the book's first chapter, Palmeri attempts to construct a theory of narrative satire that will in subsequent chapters "illuminate the satiric nature of these narratives and … improve our ability to make sense of each" (17). In this effort, he is largely successful.

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How to Cite: Kharpertian, T. D. (1991) “Beating the Binaries”, Pynchon Notes.(0). doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.265