Of Spaces and Ideas : The Novels of Jim Crace and Simon Mawer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chalupský, Petr.

Contributor:

Topolovská, Tereza.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Space in literature.

Place (Philosophy) in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (0 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Prague : Karolinum Press, 2024.

Summary:

This scholarly monograph explores the works of contemporary British novelists Jim Crace and Simon Mawer, focusing on their treatment of space and place as pivotal narrative components. It examines the thematic and aesthetic concerns shared by both authors, including the interplay between characters and their environments, identity, and historical contexts. Crace is noted for his imaginative, parabolic settings, while Mawer integrates historical realism with elements of science, thrillers, and spy fiction. The book situates its analysis within the framework of the spatial turn in literary theory, offering a comprehensive taxonomy of space and place in literature. Aimed at academics and students of contemporary fiction, it highlights the authors’ unique narrative strategies and their contributions to discussions of space, identity, and history in modern literature. Generated by AI.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

Introduction

1. After the Spatial Turn

1.1 Approaching Crace's and Mawer's Spatial Representations

2. Jim Crace

3. Imaginary Landscapes and Landscapes of the Imagination in Jim Crace's Continent and The Gift of Stones

3.1 Continent

3.1.1 Continent's Imaginary Landscapes

3.1.2 Experiencing Spaces in Transition

3.2 The Gift of Stones

3.2.1 A Narrative Animal

3.2.2 From Wild Plant to Raconteur

3.2.3 A World That's Upside Down - the Landscapes of the Imagination

3.2.4 Consolatory Spatial Narratives of Transition

4. Character and Landscape Construction in Jim Crace's Signals of Distress and Quarantine

4.1 Signals of Distress

4.1.1 Of Words and Deeds: Aymer Smith

4.1.2 Symbolic Topography - Landscapes of Distress

4.1.3 The Old, the New, and the Unchanging

4.2 Quarantine

4.2.1 The Haggard, Incautious, and Rewarding Land of Quarantine

4.2.2 The Landscape as a Moral Agent

5. Jim Crace's Cityscape: Spatial Hybridisations, Transgressiveness, and Transmodern Critique in Arcadia (and The Melody)

5.1 Arcadia

5.1.1 The Urban Pastoral

5.1.2 In Search of Hope: The Townies

5.1.3 Agora vs. Arcadia

5.1.4 Straightforward Complexity

5.1.5 The Transmodern Paradigm Shift

5.1.6 Transmodern and Transgressive Craceland

5.1.7 Arcadia's Spatial Representations

5.1.8 Arcadia's Transmodernist Critique

5.1.9 Arcadia's Transmodern Spatio-temporality

5.2 Transmodern Concerns and Transgressive Spatiality in The Melody

6. Literary Cartography in Jim Crace's The Pesthouse and Harvest

6.1 The Pesthouse

6.1.1 The Heterogeneous Space of Crace's Imagined America

6.1.2 The Volatile Real-and-Imagined Landscapes

6.1.3 The Doomed Turned Blessed - Heterotopic Places

6.1.4 Mapping the Landscape of Trauma, Pain, and Hope

6.2 Harvest

6.2.1 Delusive Idyll.

6.2.2 The Narrator

6.2.3 Mapping and Being Mapped

6.2.4 Cartography of Insecurity and Wonder

7. Simon Mawer

8. Chimera: Pioneering Simon Mawer's (Spatial) Poetics

8.1 Liminality in Chimera

8.2 Parallelism in Chimera

8.3 Idiosyncratic Conception of Time in Chimera

8.4 Thematisation of Archaeology

8.5 Thematisation of Catholicism

8.6 Place and Space in Chimera

9. Thematising Science and the Region of Central Europe in Simon Mawer's Mendel's Dwarf

9.1 Benedict Lambert - the Protagonist

9.2 Thematisation of Science in Mendel's Dwarf

9.3 The Space of Central Europe

10. The Glass Room: Housing Space, Architecture, and History

10.1 The Modernist Inspiration

10.2 The Glass Room from the Perspective of Historical Fiction

10.3 The Spatial Poetics of The Glass Room

10.4 The Glass Room and the Ideals of Architectural Modernism

11. Mapping the Liminal in Simon Mawer's Prague Spring

11.1 A Slice of History

11.2 Prototypical Protagonists

11.3 A Roll of the Dice

11.4 The Intangible and the Historical Accurate

11.5 Mapping a Historical Conflict

12. Spy Fiction as a Meditation on Identity, Space and Place in Simon Mawer's The Girl Who Fell from the Sky and Tightrope

12.1 The Girl Who Fell from the Sky : A Literary Spy Novel

12.1.1 Marian Sutro - the Liminal Protagonist

12.1.2 The Spatial Poetics of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

12.1.3 Liminality as a Key Feature

12.1.4 The Girl Who Fell from the Sky from a Geocritical Perspective

12.2 Tightrope

12.2.1 Place and Identity

12.2.2 A Geopolitical Conflict from a Geocritical Perspective

Conclusion

Bibliography

Internet Sources

Lectures and Conference Papers

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Part of the metadata in this record was created by AI, based on the text of the resource.

ISBN:

9788024658162

802465816X

OCLC:

1481792308