Real and Imaginary Fathers

Real and Imaginary Fathers PDF Author: Salman Akhtar
Publisher: Jason Aronson
ISBN: 9780765703484
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
In this work, Salman Akhtar looks at how many fathers unconsciously, and sometimes quite consciously, attempt to revise their own traumatized childhood by providing their children with possibilities for "a good life", of which they were deprived.

Real and Imaginary Fathers

Real and Imaginary Fathers PDF Author: Salman Akhtar
Publisher: Jason Aronson
ISBN: 9780765703484
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
In this work, Salman Akhtar looks at how many fathers unconsciously, and sometimes quite consciously, attempt to revise their own traumatized childhood by providing their children with possibilities for "a good life", of which they were deprived.

My Father's Guitar and Other Imaginary Things

My Father's Guitar and Other Imaginary Things PDF Author: Joseph Skibell
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616205458
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Often comic, sometimes tender, profoundly truthful, the pleasure in these nonfiction pieces by award-winning novelist Joseph Skibell is discovering along with the author that catastrophes, fantasies, and delusions are what give sweetness and shape to our lives. “As a writer,” Skibell has said, “I feel about life the way the people of the Plains felt about the buffalo: I want to use every part of it.” In My Father’s Guitar and Other Imaginary Things, his first nonfiction work, he mines the events of his own life to create a captivating collection of personal essays, a suite of intimate stories that blurs the line between funny and poignant, and between the imaginary and the real. Often improbable, these stories are 100 percent true. Skibell misremembers the guitar his father promised him; together, he and a telemarketer dream of a better world; a major work of Holocaust art turns out to have been painted by his cousin. Woven together, the stories paint a complex portrait of a man and his family: a businessman father and an artistic son and the difficult love between them; complicated uncles, cousins, and sisters; a haunted house; and—of course—an imaginary guitar. Skibell’s novels have been praised as “startlingly original” (the Washington Post), “magical” (the New Yorker), and the work of “a gifted, committed imagination” (the New York Times). With his distinctive style, he has been referred to as “the bastard love child of Mark Twain, I. B. Singer, and Wes Anderson, left on a doorstep in Lubbock, Texas.”

Etty Darwin and the Four Pebble Problem

Etty Darwin and the Four Pebble Problem PDF Author: Lauren Soloy
Publisher: Tundra Books
ISBN: 0735266085
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 47

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Book Description
Etty Darwin and her famous father go for a walk to ponder life, science . . . and fairies! Inspired by the real-life daughter of Charles Darwin. Etty loves make-believe. Her dad loves science. Etty believes in fairies. Her dad would need to see some proof that they exist. But they both love nature, conversation and each other. A gorgeous rumination on belief and imagination featuring Henrietta (Etty) Darwin and her famous father, Charles. Etty went on to become a valued and keen editor of Charles's work and a thoughtful and intellectual being in her own right. This imagined conversation between Etty and Charles as they stroll around Charles's real-life "thinking track" explores their close relationship and shows that even science is nothing without an open mind and imagination.

Paternity as Function

Paternity as Function PDF Author: Vassilis Saroglou
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004496165
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Faced with the contemporary proliferation of a “religion of emotional communities” and the multiplication of gurus, spiritual directors and masters, the psychologist of religion should question the impact of the paternal function on the structuring of religious experience. This question is examined here within the context of ancient monasticism and on the basis of ascetic sources (mainly the Ladder of John Climacus, 7th c.), as well as by means of the analysis of rituals such as baptism and monastic profession. The author demonstrates that the spiritual father refers to paternity as function, and that this function is both structural and structuring with respect to religious experience. It is also examined how this crossroads-concept of fatherhood is linked to other psychic realities such as the maternal dimension of religious desire and the role of the community, the relations between the real, the imaginary, and the symbolic, the paternal uncertainty, the articulation of the mystical desire with the Law, and the control of sexuality. This study shows the importance of this function for bringing together structure and development in the religious experience and indicates the risks of this paternity for a religious pathology.

On the Names-of-the-Father

On the Names-of-the-Father PDF Author: Jacques Lacan
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745659918
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 119

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Book Description
What astonishing success the Name-of-the-Father has had! Everyone finds something in it. Who one's father is isn't immediately obvious, hardly being visible to the naked eye. Paternity is first and foremost determined by one's culture. As Lacan said, "The Name-of-the-Father creates the function of the father." But then where does the plural stem from? It isn't pagan, for it is found in the Bible. He who speaks from the burning bush says of Himself that He doesn't have just one Name. In other words, the Father has no proper Name. It is not a figure of speech, but rather a function. The Father has as many names as the function has props. What is its function? The religious function par excellence, that of tying things together. What things? The signifier and the signified, law and desire, thought and the body. In short, the symbolic and the imaginary. Yet if these two become tied to the real in a three-part knot, the Name-of-the-Father is no longer anything but mere semblance. On the other hand, if without it everything falls apart, it is the symptom of a failed knotting. - Jacques-Alain Miller

Imaginary Friend

Imaginary Friend PDF Author: Stephen Chbosky
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 1538731347
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 768

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Book Description
From a New York Times bestselling author, a young boy is haunted by a voice in his head in this "epic horror" novel, perfect for fans of Stephen King (Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will). Single mother Kate Reese is on the run. Determined to improve life for her and her seven year-old son, Christopher, she flees an abusive relationship in the middle of the night. At first, the tight-knit community of Mill Grove, Pennsylvania seems like the perfect place to finally settle down. Then Christopher vanishes. Days later, he emerges from the woods at the edge of town, unharmed but not unchanged. He returns with a voice in his head only he can hear, with a mission only he can complete: Build a treehouse in the woods by Christmas, or his mother and everyone in the town will never be the same again. Twenty years ago, Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower made readers everywhere feel infinite. Now, Chbosky has returned with an epic work of literary horror, years in the making, whose grand scale and rich emotion redefine the genre. Read it with the lights on. One of The Year's Best Books (People, EW, Lithub, Vox, Washington Post, and more)

Imaginary

Imaginary PDF Author: Lee Bacon
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1683359690
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The story of a boy and his imaginary friend—told by the imaginary friend Zach should’ve outgrown his imaginary friend by now. He knows this. He’s 11, long past the days when kids are supposed to go on epic make-believe adventures with their invisible friends. But after the death of his father five years ago, all Zach wanted was an escape from the real world. So his imaginary friend, Shovel, hasn’t faded away like the other kids’ have. Their imaginary friendship grew stronger. But now Zach’s in middle school, and things are getting awkward. His best friend ditched him for a cooler crowd. His classmates tease him in the hallways. He still misses his dad. Reality is the worst. Which is why Zach makes regular visits to a fantasy world with Shovel. But is Zach’s overactive imagination helping him deal with loss or just pushing people away? Poignant, humorous, and breathtaking, Imaginary is an inventive story of friendship, loss, and growing up . . . as only an imaginary friend could tell it.

January First

January First PDF Author: Michael Schofield
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307719103
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Michael Schofield’s daughter January is at the mercy of her imaginary friends, except they aren’t the imaginary friends that most young children have; they are hallucinations. And January is caught in the conflict between our world and their world, a place she calls Calalini. Some of these hallucinations, like “24 Hours,” are friendly and some, like “400 the Cat” and “Wednesday the Rat,” bite and scratch her until she does what they want. They often tell her to scream at strangers, jump out of buildings, and attack her baby brother. At six years old, January Schofield, “Janni,” to her family, was diagnosed with schizophrenia, one of the worst mental illnesses known to man. What’s more, schizophrenia is 20 to 30 times more severe in children than in adults and in January’s case, doctors say, she is hallucinating 95 percent of the time that she is awake. Potent psychiatric drugs that would level most adults barely faze her. A New York Times bestseller, January First captures Michael and his family's remarkable story in a narrative that forges new territory within books about mental illness. In the beginning, readers see Janni’s incredible early potential: her brilliance, and savant-like ability to learn extremely abstract concepts. Next, they witnesses early warning signs that something is not right, Michael’s attempts to rationalize what’s happening, and his descent alongside his daughter into the abyss of schizophrenia. Their battle has included a two-year search for answers, countless medications and hospitalizations, allegations of abuse, despair that almost broke their family apart and, finally, victories against the illness and a new faith that they can create a life for Janni filled with moments of happiness. A compelling, unsparing and passionate account, January First vividly details Schofield’s commitment to bring his daughter back from the edge of insanity. It is a father’s soul-baring memoir of the daily struggles and challenges he and his wife face as they do everything they can to help Janni while trying to keep their family together.

Outlaw Fathers in Victorian and Modern British Literature

Outlaw Fathers in Victorian and Modern British Literature PDF Author: Helena Gurfinkel
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1611476380
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Outlaw Fathers in Victorian and Modern British Literature: Queering Patriarchy traces the representations of outlaw fathers, or queer patriarchs, and their relationships with their queer sons, in a particular literary tradition: mid-to-late-Victorian and twentieth-century British fiction and memoir. Specifically, I look at such representations in Anthony Trollope’s Doctor Thorne (1858) and The Prime Minister (1875-76) (while also drawing on An Autobiography (1883) and The Duke’s Children (1880)); Samuel Butler’s The Way of All Flesh (published in 1901), Henry James’s “The Lesson of the Master” (1888), J. R. Ackerley’s My Father and Myself (written in the 1930s and published in 1968), E. M. Forster’s “Little Imber” (1961) (with an occasional detour into The Longest Journey (1907), Howards End (1909), and Maurice (published in 1971)), and Alan Hollinghurst’s The Spell (1998). In the coda, I consider the implications of including transgender, transnational female-to-male fathers of color in the ranks of queer patriarchy and discuss two contemporary novels, Jackie Kay’s Trumpet (1998, Scotland) and Patricia Powell’s The Pagoda (1998, Jamaica and the United States), as well as—briefly—an episode an episode of the television show The L-Word (2008) and the documentary U-People (2007). The term “queer patriarchy” has two components. The first one is a non-traditional, primarily—but not exclusively—non-heterosexual, pervasively present, and culturally important, paternal subjectivity. The second one is the bond between such queer paternal figures and their sons, biological and non-biological. This study pays attention primarily to the relationship between psyche, language, and ideology, but it will join a larger conversation about the changing roles of men in general and fathers in particular, which is taking place outside of the field of literary studies.

The Whisper Man

The Whisper Man PDF Author: Alex North
Publisher: Celadon Books
ISBN: 1250317975
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** "WORKS BEAUTIFULLY... If you like being terrified, The Whisper Man has your name on it." —The New York Times, Editor's Pick "SUPERB" —Publisher's Weekly, Starred Review "BRILLIANT... will satisfy readers of Thomas Harris and Stephen King." —Booklist, Starred Review "POIGNANT AND TERRIFYING" —Entertainment Weekly In this dark, suspenseful thriller, Alex North weaves a multi-generational tale of a father and son caught in the crosshairs of an investigation to catch a serial killer preying on a small town. After the sudden death of his wife, Tom Kennedy believes a fresh start will help him and his young son Jake heal. A new beginning, a new house, a new town. Featherbank. But the town has a dark past. Twenty years ago, a serial killer abducted and murdered five residents. Until Frank Carter was finally caught, he was nicknamed "The Whisper Man," for he would lure his victims out by whispering at their windows at night. Just as Tom and Jake settle into their new home, a young boy vanishes. His disappearance bears an unnerving resemblance to Frank Carter's crimes, reigniting old rumors that he preyed with an accomplice. Now, detectives Amanda Beck and Pete Willis must find the boy before it is too late, even if that means Pete has to revisit his great foe in prison: The Whisper Man. And then Jake begins acting strangely. He hears a whispering at his window...