Books

Pub Date
1993
ISBN
9780804722094
Page Count
289

The Pragmatics of Insignificance

Chekhov, Zoshchenko, Gogol

By Cathy Popkin

Stanford University Press

What makes a tale worth telling? When is a detail significant and when extraneous? And how much irrelevant detail can a reader take in stride? This book addresses tellability by looking at texts that raise the question themselves, works by Chekhov, Zoshchenko, and Gogol.