Russian experimental fiction : resisting ideology after Utopia / Edith W. Clowes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Clowes, Edith W., author.

Series:

Princeton legacy library

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

Russian fiction.

Utopias in literature.

Experimental fiction, Russian--History and criticism.

Experimental fiction, Russian.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (253 pages).

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [1993]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In the three decades following Stalin's death, major underground Russian writers have subverted Soviet ideology by using parody to draw attention to its basis in utopian thought. Referring to utopian writing as diverse as Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, and Orwell's Animal Farm, they have tested notions of truth, reality, and representation. They have gone beyond their precursors by experimenting with the tensions between ludic and didactic art. Edith Clowes explores these "meta-utopian" narratives, which address a wide range of attitudes toward utopia, to expose the challenge that literary play poses to dogmatism and to elucidate the sense of renewal it can bring to social imagination. Using both structural analysis and reception theory, she introduces readers outside Russia to a fascinating body of literature that includes Aleksandr Zinoviev's The Yawning Heights, Abram Terts's Liubimov, Vladimir Voinovich's Moscow 2042, and Liudmila Petrushevskaia's "The New Robinsons.".Not advocating its own utopian alternative to current social realities, meta-utopian fiction investigates the function of a deep human impulse to imagine, project, and enforce alternative social orders. Clowes examines the technical innovations meta-utopian writers have made in style, image, and narrative structure that inform fresh modes of social imagination. Her analysis leads to an inquiry into the intended and real audiences of this fiction, and into the ways its authors try to move them toward more sophisticated social discourse.Originally published in 1993.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Note on Transliteration and Translation

List of Abbreviations

PART ONE: EXPERIMENTAL FICTION AGAINST IDEOLOGICAL FIXATION

CHAPTER ONE. Meta-utopian Writing: The Problem of Utopia as Ideology

CHAPTER TWO. Publishing the Dystopian Heritage: The Glasnost Debate about Literary Experiment and Utopian Ideology

PART TWO: THE META-UTOPIAN EXPERIMENT IN FICTION: ELEMENTS OF LITERARYAND IDEOLOGICAL REANIMATION

CHAPTER THREE. Charting Meta-utopia: Chronotopes of Disorientation

CHAPTER FOUR. Science, Ideology, and the Structure of Meta-utopian Narrative

CHAPTER FIVE. The Meta-utopian Language Problem, or Utopia as a Bump on a -log-

CHAPTER SIX. Meta-utopian Consciousness

PART THREE: THE READER IN THE TEXT: POPULARIZING THE META-UTOPIAN MENTALITY

CHAPTER SEVEN. Making Meta-utopia Accessible: Zinoviev's The Radiant Future

CHAPTER EIGHT. Utopia, Imagination, and Memory: The Strugatsky Brothers' The Ugly Swans, Tendriakov's A Potshot at Mirages, and Aksenov's The Island of Crimea

CHAPTER NINE. Parody of Popular Forms in Iskander's Rabbits and Boa Constrictors and Voinovich's Moscow 2042

CHAPTER TEN. Play with Closure in Petrushevskaia's "The New Robinsons" and Kabakov's "The Deserter"

CONCLUSION. The Utopian Impulse after 1968: Russian Meta-utopian Fiction in a European Context

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-231) and index.

ISBN:

9780691636597

0691636591

9780691608105

0691608105

9781400863532

1400863538

OCLC:

889252773