Reading the modern European novel since 1900 : a critical study of major fiction from Proust's Swann's way to Ferrante's Neapolitan tetralogy / Daniel R. Schwarz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schwarz, Daniel R., author.

Series:

Reading the novel.

Reading the Novel

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

European fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

European fiction.

European fiction--21st century--History and criticism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (365 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Hoboken, New Jersey ; Chichester, England : Wiley Blackwell, 2018.

Summary:

An exploration of the modern European novel from a renowned English literature scholar Reading the Modern European Novel since 1900 is an engaging, in-depth examination of the evolution of the modern European novel. Written in Daniel R. Schwarz's precise and highly readable style, this critical study offers compelling discussions on a wide range of major works since 1900 and examines recurring themes within the context of significant historical events, including both World Wars and the Holocaust. The author cites important developments in the evolution of the modern novel and explores how these paradigmatic works of fiction reflect intellectual and cultural history, including developments in painting and cinema. Schwarz focuses on narrative complexity, thematic subtlety, and formal originality as well as how novels render historical events and cultural developments Discussing major works by Proust, Camus, Mann, Kafka, Grass, di Lampedusa, Bassani, Kertesz, Pamuk, Kundera, Saramago, Muller and Ferrante, Schwarz explores how these often experimental masterworks pay homage to the their major predecessors-discussed in Schwarz's ground-breaking Reading the European Novel to 1900 -even while proposing radical departures from realism in their approach to time and space, their testing the limits of language, and their innovative ways of rendering the human psyche. Written for teachers and students by a highly-acclaimed scholar and including valuable study questions, Reading the Modern European Novel since 1900 offers a guide for a deeper understanding of how these original modern masters respond to both the past and present.

Contents:

Intro

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

Also by Daniel R. Schwarz

Chapter 1 Introduction: The Novel After 1900

Basic Premises

What is Modernism?

The Role of History in Shaping Fiction

Human Choices

The Complexity of Modernist Texts

Principles of Selection

Translations

Conclusion

Notes

Chapter 2 Cultural Crisis: Decadence and Desire in Mann's Death in Venice (1912)

The Author in the Text: Mann and Aschenbach

Cultural Decadence and Enervation

The Death Motif

Aschenbach's Doubles: The Repressed Self Plays Back

Seductive Beauty, Corrupting Pleasure: Venice and Aschenbach's Illicit Love

Aschenbach's Use of Classical Contexts

Aschenbach's Transformation and Demise

Study Questions for Death in Venice

Chapter 3 Proust's Swann's Way (1913) and the Novel of Sensibility: Memory, Obsession, and Consciousness

What Kind of Fiction Did Proust Write?

Proust's Style

"Combray 1": The Significance of the Opening Pages

Multiple Selves

Combray 2

Swann

Why Does the Narrator Need to Tell Swann's Story?

Part III: The Narrator's Obsession with Gilberte

Study Questions for Swann's Way

Chapter 4 The Metamorphosis (1915): Kaf ka's Noir Challenge to Realism

The Kafka Universe

Kafka's Jewishness

Kafka's World: The Trial and "In the Penal Colony"

The Metamorphosis

How The Metamorphosis Begins

Metamorphosis as Transformation and Transvaluation

Study Questions for The Metamorphosis

Chapter 5 Camus's Indifferent, Amoral, and Godless Cosmos: The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947) as Existential Novels

Introduction

Camus's The Stranger (1942)

Historical Context

The Stranger: Part One

Meursault's Literary Ancestors

Social Contexts for Meursault's Behavior.

The Stranger: Part Two

Afterword

Study Questions for The Stranger

The Plague

What Kind of Fiction is The Plague?

The Onset of the Plague

The Plague as Allegory

The Human Drama: Rieux as Protagonist and Narrator

The Human Drama: Choice

Study Questions for The Plague

Chapter 6 Why Giorgio Bassani Matters: The Elegiac Imagined World of Bassani and the Jews of Ferrara

Introduction: Making the Case for Bassani's Stature

Bassani as Italian-Jewish Writer: Why History Matters

The Jewish Community in Ferrara

What Kind of Fiction Did Bassani Write?

"A Plaque on Via Mazzini": A Story about Jewish Deportation and a Lone Single Return

Bassani's Psychological Realism

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis as Holocaust Text

Bassani's Last Novel: The Heron

Bassani the Modernist

Study Questions for the Fiction of Giorgio Bassani

Chapter 7 The Novel as Elegy: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard (1958)

Sicily as Character

Don Fabrizio, the Prince of Salina

Tancredi

The Penultimate Chapter

The Ending

Decadence

The Narrative Voice

Study Questions for The Leopard

Chapter 8 Günter Grass's The Tin Drum (1959): Reconfiguring European History as Fable

The Autobiographical Element

What Kind of Fiction is The Tin Drum?

Magic Realism and the Uncanny

Allegory and the Uncanny

The Tin Drum and German Expressionism

Grass's Historiography: Oskar, Hitler, and the German Nation

The Rise of Nazism: The Chapter Entitled "Faith Hope Love"

The Function of Oskar

Oskar's Divided Self: The Paradigms of Goethe and Rasputin

The Relationship Between the Personal and Political: Oskar's Drumming and Glass‐shattering Screams.

How The Tin Drum Begins: Oskar as a Self‐Dramatizing Narrator‐Protagonist

Book Three: Grass's Satiric Visions of Post‐War Germany

Resistant Reading: The Tin Drum's Failure to Render the Holocaust

Afterword: The Film of The Tin Drum

Study Questions for The Tin Drum

Chapter 9 Imre Kertész's Fatelessness (1975): Rendering the Holocaust as a Present Tense Event

The Relevance of Fatelessness

The Artistry of Fatelessness

How Fatelessness Begins: Entering Georg's World

Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Zeitz, and Back to Buchenwald

Return to Budapest: Fatelessness within History's Fateful Web

Study Questions for Fatelessness

Chapter 10 Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984): History as Fate

The Paradoxical Concepts of Lightness and Weight

Tomas and Tereza

Sabina

The Political Theme

The Narrator Wearing the Mask of Author

Kundera's Concept of Form in The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Study Questions for The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Chapter 11 Saramago's The History of the Siege of Lisbon (1989): Rewriting History, Reconfiguring Lives

Saramago's Style: Innovative, Imaginative, Idiosyncratic

How the Concept of the Siege Functions

Historical Contexts

Reconfiguring History

Historiography

Narrative Form

Raimundo Silva

The Mutual Siege on Affections: How and Why Maria Sara and Silva Find One Another

The Crucial Telephone Conversation

Study Questions for The History of the Siege of Lisbon

Chapter 12 Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red (1998): Cultural Conflict in Sixteenth‐Century Istanbul and its Modern Implications

Thematic Issues: Ottoman Miniatures versus European Art

Pamuk's Aesthetic.

Pamuk's Originality: Transgressive Form in My Name is Red

Shekure

The Murder Suspects

Religious Fanaticism

The Murderer's Psychology

Historical Implications

Conclusion: Notes toward a Resistant Reading

Study Questions for My Name is Red

Chapter 13 Herta Müller's The Hunger Angel (2009): A Hunger for Life, A Hunger for Words

Historical Background

The Title

Leo's Narration as Bildungsroman Manqué

Parallels to Holocaust Narratives

Words

How The Hunger Angel Begins

The Labor Camp

Hunger

Leo's Imagination

The Parabolic Function of Characters

Leo's Return: Dissonance and Homosexuality

My Resistant Reading

Study Questions for The Hunger Angel

Chapter 14 Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet: Women Discovering Their Voices in a Violent and Sexist Male Society

What Kind of Fiction is Ferrante Writing?

Radical Disruption: Ferrante's The Days of Abandonment (2002)

Social Class and Class Satire

Naples

Form and Style: The Shape of the Narrative

Form: Opening

Form: Epilogue

Elena and Lila's Relationship and Their Struggle for Freedom in a Patriarchal Society

Elena as Author

The Author in the Text, The Author as the Text

The Concept of Authorial Textuality

Ferrante as Authorial Presence?

Anita Raja aka Elena Ferrante

My Reservations

Study Questions for Ferrante's Neapolitan Tetralogy

Selected Bibliography (Including Works Cited)

Primary Works

Selected Bibliography and Critical Works

Index

EULA.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapters and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781118693414

1118693418

9781118680667

1118680669

9781118680650

1118680650

OCLC:

1029233757