more Percival Everett

In preparation for class, please take a novel you're pretty familiar with off your bookshelf. Jot down if/how it's divided into sections or chapters and briefly note how new chapters or sections are indicated. Just start on a new page? Numbers? Titles? If it uses chapter titles, please list them. Please also note when the book was first published.

Telephone Structure

 

Chapters

A convention of giving a chapter (or work) a name that is a summation of the contents of the chapter (or work). It used to be a serious writing convention; many 17th- and 18th-century (and occasionally, early 19th-century) works had extended titles that pretty much summed up the main events of the installment.

“Chapter titles, [Henry] Fielding proceeded to explain, were like the inscriptions over the doors of those inns, advertising the accommodations within.”  --“The Chapter: A History,” Nicholas Dames, The New Yorker, October 29, 2014

 

Joseph Andrews, Henry Fielding (1742)

Ch. 1: Of writing lives in general, and particularly of Pamela, with a word by the bye of Colley Cibber and others

Ch. 2: Of Mr Joseph Andrews, his birth, parentage, education, and great endowments, with a word or two concerning ancestors

Ch. 3: Of Mr Abraham Adams the curate, Mrs Slipslop the chambermaid, and others

Ch. 4: What happened after their journey to London

Ch. 5: The death of Sir Thomas Booby, with the affectionate and mournful behaviour of his widow, and the great purity of Joseph Andrews

Ch. 6: How Joseph Andrews writ a letter to his sister Pamela

Ch. 7: Sayings of wise men. A dialogue between the lady and her maid; and a panegyric, or rather satire, on the passion of love, in the sublime style

Ch. 8: In which, after some very fine writing, the history goes on, and relates the interview between the lady and Joseph; where the latter hath set an example which we despair of seeing followed by his sex in this vicious age

Ch. 9: What passed between the lady and Mrs Slipslop; in which we prophesy there are some strokes which every one will not truly comprehend at the first reading

Ch. 10: Joseph writes another letter; his transactions with Mr Peter Pounce, &c., with his departure from Lady Booby

and many more with similar sorts of titles

 

Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackery (1848)

Before the Curtain

Ch. 1: Chiswich Mall

Ch. 2: In which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley Prepare to Open the Campaign

Ch. 3: Rebecca Is in the Presence of the Enemy

Ch. 4: The Green Silk Purse

Ch. 5: Dobbin of Ours

Ch. 6:  Vauxhall

Ch. 7: Crawley of Queen’s Crawley

Ch. 8: Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss America Sedley, Russell Square, London

Ch. 9: Family Portraits

Ch. 10: Miss Sharp Begins to Make Friends

 and many more with similar sorts of titles

 

Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel (2012)

 Part One

I: Falcons. Wolf Hall, Wiltshire: September 1535

II: Crows. London and Kimbolton:: Autumn 1535

III: Angels. London: Christmas 1535—New Year 1536

Part Two

I: The Black Book. London: January—April 1536

II: Master of the Phantoms. London: May 1536

III: Spoils. London: Summer 1536

 

The Sea of Tranquility, Emily St. John Mandel (2022)

Remittance/1912

Mirella and Vincent/2020

Last Book Tour on Earth/2203

Bad Chickens/2401

Mirella and Vincent/file corruption

Remittance/1918, 1990, 2008

Anomaly

 

The Glass Hotel, Emily St. John Mandel (2020)

Part One

1: Vincent in the Ocean

2: I always come to you

3: The Hotel

4: A Fairy Tale

5: Olivia

Part Two

6: The Counterlife

7: Seafarer

8: The Counterlife

9: A Fairy Tale

Part Three

10: The Office Chorus

11: Winter

12: The Counterlife

13: Shadow Country

14: The Office Chorus

15: The Hotel

16: Vincent in the Ocean

 

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel (2015)

Part 1: The Theater

Chapters 1-6

Part 2: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Chapters 7-12

Part 3: Prefer You with a Crown

Chapters 13-18

Part 4: The Starship

Chapters 19-26

Part 5: Toronto

Chapters 27-37

Part 6: The Airplanes

Chapters 38-41

Part 7: Terminal

Chapters 42-47

Part 8: The Prophet

Chapters 48-52

Part 9: Station Eleven

Chapters 53-55

 

Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward (2011)

The First Day: Birth in a Bare-Bulb Place

The Second Day: Hidden Eggs

The Third Day: Sickness in the Dirt

The Fourth Day: Worth Stealing

The Fifth Day: Salvage the Bones

The Sixth Day: A Steady Hand

The Seventh Day: Game Dogs and Game Men

The Eighth Day: Make Them Know

The Ninth Day: Hurricane Eclipse

The Tenth Day: In the Endless Eye

The Eleventh Day: Katrina

The Twelfth Day: Alive

 

How Much of These Hills is Gold, C. Pam Zhang (2020)

Part One

Gold

Plum

Salt

Skull

Wind

Mud

Meat

Water

Blood

Part Two

Skull

Mud

Meat

Plum

Salt

Gold

Water

Mud

Wind

Blood

Water

Part Three

Wind Wind Wind Wind Wind

Part Four

Mud

Water

Meat

Skull

Plum

Wind

Blood

Gold

Salt

Gold

Gold