The author in the office : narrative writing in twentieth-century Argentina and Uruguay / Paul R. Jordan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jordan, Paul, Dr., author.

Series:

Colección Támesis. Monografías ; Serie A, 226.

Colección Támesis. Serie A: Monografías ; 226

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Argentine prose literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Argentine prose literature.

Uruguayan prose literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Uruguayan prose literature.

Literature and society--Argentina.

Literature and society.

Literature and society--Uruguay.

Social change in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (237 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Woodbridge, Suffolk ; Rochester, NY : Tamesis, 2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Office-based writers from both sides of the River Plate chronicle the twentieth century. Martel's La bolsa (1891) initiates, and Dorfman's Reader (1995) concludes, a study of the white-collar citizens of Buenos Aires and Montevideo in their daytime habitat: the office. The literary background is the European literature of bureaucracy: Balzac, Galdós, Gogol, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Kafka; the theoretical approach is through the sociologists Max Weber and C. Wright Mills; the historical context is the twentieth century: the decline of European power and the ascendency of the USA; two World Wars; the Wall Street crash; communism and fascism. Through the eyes of Arlt, Benedetti, Campodónico, Cortázar, De Castro, Denevi, Fernández, Marechal, Mariani, Martínez Estrada, Onetti and Ricci, we observe life on both sides of the River Plate, as the two countries succumb to polarisation, repression and, eventually, military dictatorship. This is the twentieth century, viewed by a bewildered, frequently anguished participant: the person at the next desk. PAUL R. JORDAN lectures in Hispanic Studies at the University of Sheffield.

Contents:

CONTENTS; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; 1. Introduction: Writing in and of the Era of the Typewriter; 2. Office Life in 1920s' Buenos Aires and Montevideo: Visions of Purgatory; 3. The 1930s: From Social Criticism to Creative Disillusion; 4. Mario Benedetti: Uruguay, the Office Republic; 5. 1940s' Argentina: From Alienation to Bureaucratic Nightmare; 6. Argentine Bureaucracy from the 1950s to the 1970s: The Enemy within; 7. Uruguay from the 1960s: Bureaucracies of the Absurd; Conclusion: Globalisation and the Writer-functionary; SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 04 May 2023).

Includes bibliographical references (p. [229]-232) and index.

ISBN:

1-84615-447-2

OCLC:

818846573