Michèle Roberts, The Book of Mrs Noah

Rosemary White (University of Northumbria at Newcastle)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1987

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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The Wild Girl

problematizes its own narrative trajectory,

The Book of Mrs Noah

is an exploded text. Michèle Roberts' fourth novel is fragmentary and allusive – a literary Flood – containing a multiplicity of narratives and references to other works, most notably the Old Testament. The novel begins in Venice, employing that city as a route to many watery metaphors and fabulous scenarios. Any reader expecting a continuous, realist narrative will be sorely disappointed, as

The Book of Mrs Noah

plays with generic forms, dabbling in magical realism, biblical fables, biography and autobiography. The central narrative, although it relinquishes all authority in its playful relationship to the truth, is the tale of Mrs Noah, a woman who has come to Venice with her academic husband. One…

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2038 words

Citation: White, Rosemary. "The Book of Mrs Noah". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 April 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10198, accessed 20 April 2024.]

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