Ethics and nostalgia in the contemporary novel / John J. Su.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Su, John J., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English fiction.

Nostalgia in literature.

Ethics in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vii, 226 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Ethics & Nostalgia in the Contemporary Novel

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Images of loss and yearning played a crucial role in literary texts written in the later part of the twentieth century. Despite deep cultural differences, novelists from Africa, the Caribbean, Great Britain, and the United States share a sense that the economic, social, and political forces associated with late modernity have evoked widespread nostalgia within the communities in which they write. In this original and wide-ranging study, John J. Su explores the relationship between nostalgia and ethics in novels across the English-speaking world. He challenges the tendency in literary studies to characterise memory as positive and nostalgia as necessarily negative. Instead, this book argues that nostalgic fantasies are crucial to the ethical visions presented by topical novels. From Jean Rhys to Wole Soyinka and from V. S. Naipaul to Toni Morrison, Su identifies nostalgia as a central concern in the twentieth-century novel.

Contents:

Introduction: nostalgia, ethics, and contemporary Anglophone literature

Narratives of return: locating ethics in the age of globalization

Nostalgia and narrative ethics in Caribbean literature

'Loss was in the order of things': recalling loss, reclaiming place in Native American fiction

Refiguring national character: the remains of the British estate novel

Appeasing an embittered history: trauma and nationhood in the writings of Achebe and Soyinka; Conclusion: nostalgia and its futures.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 212-223) and index.

ISBN:

1-107-15510-X

1-280-28421-8

0-511-13442-8

0-511-20176-1

0-511-13756-7

0-511-31188-5

0-511-48539-5

0-511-13539-4

OCLC:

252487701

Publisher Number:

9780521854405 (hbk.)