Fragment: Hoffmann’s Pictogram 1821

I suppose it’s not really so surprising to stumble upon a textual novelty such as Hoffmann’s, as early as 1821 previsioning Oulipian ‘constrained writing’, when Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy was published only sixty years earlier as our English precursor for tricks of ludic composition.

See also, Her Left Shoe: E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Terrible Projectile of Semiotics . . .

https://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.com/2016/01/her-left-shoe-terrible-projectile.html

 

See also, Colour Blind:

https://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.com/2011/09/colour-blind.html

 

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Catherine Eisner believes passionately in plot-driven suspense fiction, a devotion to literary craft that draws on studies in psychoanalytical criminology and psychoactive pharmacology to explore the dark side of motivation, and ignite plot twists with unexpected outcomes. Within these disciplines Eisner’s fictions seek to explore variant literary forms derived from psychotherapy and criminology to trace the traumas of characters in extremis. Compulsive recurring sub-themes in her narratives examine sibling rivalry, rivalrous cousinhood, pathological imposture, financial chicanery, and the effects of non-familial male pheromones on pubescence, 

see Eisner’s Sister Morphine (2008)

http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/sister-morphine.html

and Listen Close to Me (2011)

http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/published-this-autumn-listen-close-to.html 

and A Bad Case (2015)
http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/a-bad-case-and-other-adventures-of.html

 

A Defence

Court Report

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Defendant: A man I thought I knew came round the corner.

Prosecutor: Describe this man.

Defendant: He searches for work. He has a scythe on his back.

Prosecutor: You say he spoke to you? 

Defendant: ‘D’you fancy a job?’ I heard him say. Then he asked me where he could get an iron bar. I told him he could find one over by the old dock ferry on some waste ground if he wanted one.

Prosecutor: I suggest that you struck the victim six or seven savage blows with the iron bar.

Defendant: No sir. I did not. I never touched the man.

(At which, from the public gallery, Death smiled.)

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Catherine Eisner believes passionately in plot-driven suspense fiction, a devotion to literary craft that draws on studies in psychoanalytical criminology and psychoactive pharmacology to explore the dark side of motivation, and ignite plot twists with unexpected outcomes. Within these disciplines Eisner’s fictions seek to explore variant literary forms derived from psychotherapy and criminology to trace the traumas of characters in extremis. Compulsive recurring sub-themes in her narratives examine sibling rivalry, rivalrous cousinhood, pathological imposture, financial chicanery, and the effects of non-familial male pheromones on pubescence, 

see Eisner’s Sister Morphine (2008)

http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/sister-morphine.html

and Listen Close to Me (2011)

http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/published-this-autumn-listen-close-to.html 

and A Bad Case (2015)
http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/a-bad-case-and-other-adventures-of.html