The leading theorists of literary collage novels in the 21st century are Jonathan Lethem and David Shields. Two of their essays, Lethem's "The Ecstasy of Influence" (2007) and Shields's
Reality Hunger (2010), brought discussions on
copyright,
originality, and
inspiration into the fiction and nonfiction worlds. They also popularized collage as a literary form, but employ the term "collage novel" in drastically different ways. In "The Ecstasy of Influence," Lethem uses "collage novel" to describe Eduardo Paolozzi's
Kex, a text made entirely out of found language: "cobbled from crime novels and newspaper clippings." In his chapter in
Reality Hunger on collage novels, Shields uses the term to describe Renata Adler's
Speedboat, a fragmentary narrative that combines different modes of original writing. In Shields's words,
Speedboat “captivates by its jagged and frenetic changes of pitch and tone and voice.” Adler “confides, reflects, tells a story, aphorizes, undercuts the aphorism, then undercuts that . . . She changes subjects like a brilliant schizophrenic, making irrational sense.” In this way, Shields uses "collage novel" to mean a text that is fragmentary, but does not contain any found language. In other essays, Shields uses "collage" to talk about texts that blend original and found language. ==See also==