Nature and Narrative

Markku Lehtimäki, PhD., is a professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Turku, Finland. His fields of expertise are narrative theory, visual culture, ecocriticism, American literature, and the contemporary novel. His research projects include Natural Narratology, Cognitive Poetics, and Ecocriticism (2009–2011), The Changing Environment of the North: Cultural Representations and Uses of Water (2017–2021), The Novel’s Knowledge: The Changing Roles of Author and Book in Society (2022–2024), and Authors of the Story Economy: Narrative and Digital Capital in the 21st Century Literary Field (2024–2028). He is the author or co-editor of several books, most recently Visual Representations of the Arctic: Imagining Shimmering Worlds in Culture, Literature and Politics (Routledge 2021) and Cold Waters: Tangible and Symbolic Seascapes of the North (2022). He has also published articles in journals such as Image [&] Narrative, Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Theory, and Style.

Markku Lehtimäki’s stimulating close readings help us see how the rhetoric of contemporary fiction grapples with a wide range of ecological questions, addressing the colonial roots of the climate crisis while imagining its destabilizing influence on everyday life.– Marco Caracciolo, Associate Professor, Ghent University, BelgiumNature and Narrative: Rhetoric and Design in Contemporary Fiction is a timely and important contribution to the ecocritical and eco-narratological discussion. Combining environmental literary studies with rhetorical narrative theory and emphasizing humanist ecocriticism, the book sheds new light on a range of prominent novels from the 21st century.– Alice Sundman,Postdoctoral Researcher, Stockholm University, Sweden

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction 1. The Natural and the Unnatural: History and Anamorphosis in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall2. Black and White Geographies: Seeing and Writing the New World in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy3. Imagi(ni)ng the Arctic: Historical Narrative and Visual Poetics in Ian McGuire’s The North Water4. Liquid Identities: Water and Storytelling in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna5. A Heart Open to Nature: Experience, Memory, and Time in Paul Harding’s Tinkers and Enon6. Ethics and Embodiment: Realism, Ideas, and Animal Rights in J. M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello7. A Rhetoric of Climate Change: Comedy, Character, and Progression in Ian McEwan’s Solar8. Living on Multiple Planes: Daily Life, Global Crisis, and Narrative Fragmentation in Jenny Offill’s WeatherConclusionReferencesIndex