Slowness and its related concepts of rhythm and pace are understudied topics in narrative theory. Whereas readers typically invoke narrative rhythm to describe the experiential sense that a narrative accelerates or decelerates during the act of reading, narrative theory generally conceptualizes rhythm as the quantitative relation between the duration of story time and the length of the discourse that represents it. Narrative Slowness as Effect critically examines the experience of narrative rhythm.
In Narrative Slowness as Effect Ella Mingazova defines narrative slowness as a sensation felt in the reading of a text that can take many shapes, both formal and experiential. She critically examines the connections between slowness and an excess of information, a prolonged attention to a text, a text’s atmosphere or mood, and boredom. In addition, Mingazova establishes relations between narrative slowness and current and related concerns in cultural and literary studies such as slow violence, slow TV, slow reading, slow cinema, and cultural and social acceleration. By focusing its examination of narrative slowness on the sensation it provokes, Narrative Slowness as Effect departs from its conceptualization in classical narratology and proposes a new framework for analyzing slowness in narrative fiction.