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An Ethic of Global Fiction: David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas and Min-gyu Park’s Dinner with Buffett
Cross-Cultural Studies
2018,
52(), pp.371-392
DOI : 10.21049/ccs.2018.52..371
Publisher : Center for Cross Culture Studies
Research Area : Literature
DOI : 10.21049/ccs.2018.52..371
Publisher : Center for Cross Culture Studies
Research Area : Literature
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Beginning with ethical nature inherent in the novel, this paper argues that ethical responsibility of 21st century global fiction lies in its invitation to readers to rethink the status quo in a globalized world. While David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas and Min-gyu Park’s Dinner with Buffett use international settings, these works exemplify how global fiction fails at, or succeeds in, the ethical task of challenging the contemporary world, respectively. This is because Mitchell’s 500-page novel, although a felicitous embodiment of globalization and hybridity, does not challenge dominant ideologies and instead ends up reproducing a conventional humanist ideology against the backdrop of exotic places and diverting literary pastiches. In contrast, Dinner with Buffett, a novella about a Korean average Joe who wins a charity meal with tycoon Warren Buffett, perplexes the reader with counterintuitive turns and, in doing so, uncovers what we believe to be common sense today that serves global capitalism.
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