Gerard Genette builds a systematic theory of narrative upon an analysis of the writings of Marcel Proust, particularly
'Remembrance of Things Past.'
Adopting what is essentially a structuralist approach, the author identifies and names
the basic constituents and techniques of narrative and illustrates them by referring to literary works in many languages.
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The Seminal Work in Narrative Theory, February
24, 2002
By Adirondack Views (Lake Placid, NY) This book should be required reading for anyone who wants to look seriously
at narrative theory. Genette's analysis of the construction of time in narrative discourse is the still the model for theorists
writing since then. Such categories as order, frequency, and duration in the narrative presentation of story-time show how
narrative decisions on the part of authors can have dramatically different rhetorical effects. Genette views these narrative
strategies as a form of rhetorical figuration and gives them terms drawn from classical rhetoric (e.g., "prolepsis" for a
flashing forward, "analepsis" for a flashback).
Genette's work is one of the clearest of all the French theorists of the 1970s and 1980s who became popular among literary
critics and theorists in the US. His work is easily the most empirical of his academic generation of French theorists and
perhaps the most likely to be useful in generations to come.
