Reading the American Novel 1920-2010 E-Book

James Phelan

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Reading the Novel
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 571

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

This astute guide to the literary achievements of American novelists in the twentieth century places their work in its historical context and offers detailed analyses of landmark novels based on a clearly laid out set of tools for analyzing narrative form.

• Includes a valuable overview of twentieth- and early twenty-first century American literary history
• Provides analyses of numerous core texts including The Great Gatsby, Invisible Man, The Sound and the Fury, The Crying of Lot 49 and Freedom
• Relates these individual novels to the broader artistic movements of modernism and postmodernism
• Explains and applies key principles of rhetorical reading
• Includes numerous cross-novel comparisons and contrasts 

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Series

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Reading the American Novel, 1920–2010

Broad Overview, Part One: History ↔ Literary Period ↔ Literary Work

The Role of Genre

Periodization and the Concept of the Dominant

Broad Overview, Part Two: Modernity/Modernism, Postmodernity/Postmodernism, and the Individual Work

History ↔ Period ↔ Work Redux: Toward a Shift in My “Composing Focus”

Choosing Ten Novels

Notes

References

Further Reading

Chapter 1: Principles of Rhetorical Reading

Narrative Progression: An Expanded View

Ethics of the Telling and Ethics of the Told

Off-Kilter, Unreliable, and Deficient Narration: A Rhetorical Model

Respect, Disrespect, and Over-respect

Notes

References

Further Reading

Chapter 2: The Age of Innocence (1920): Bildung and the Ethics of Desire

Material and Treatment

The Beginning: Initiation and Launch

Scenes from the Voyage: Newland and May; Newland and Ellen

The Two-stage Arrival: Configuring Wharton's Fierce Realism

Notes

References

Further Reading

Chapter 3: The Great Gatsby (1925): Character Narration, Temporal Order, and Tragedy

Nick as Narrator: Initiation and Launch

Nick as Narrator: The Interaction

Nick as Character: Fabula, Sjuzhet, and Progression (Especially in the Voyage)

Gatsby: Voyage and Arrival

Talking Back

Notes

References

Further Reading

Chapter 4: A Farewell to Arms (1929): Bildung, Tragedy, and the Rhetoric of Voice

Initiation and Launch I: Or, the Concept of Voice and the Voice of Frederic Henry

Launch II: Frederic and Catherine

Voice in the Voyage

Final Stages of the Voyage, Arrival, and Farewell

Catherine Barkley

Hemingway's View of the World

Notes

References

Further Reading

Chapter 5: The Sound and the Fury (1929): Portrait Narrative as Tragedy

Benjy: Initiation, Launch, Portrait

Quentin: Initiation, Voyage, Portrait

Jason: Initiation, Voyage, Portrait

Dilsey: Initiation, Arrival, Farewell

Notes

References

Further Reading

Chapter 6: Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937): Bildung and the Rhetoric and Politics of Voice

Initiation, Phase One: The Narrator's Voice

Initiation, Phase Two: Dialogue

The Launch

The Voyage

The Trial Scene

Arrival and Farewell

Notes

References

Further Reading

Chapter 7: Invisible Man (1952): Bildung, Politics, and Rhetorical Design

Initiation

Launch

Voyage

Arrival, Part One

Arrival, Part Two, and Farewell

Notes

References

Further Reading

Chapter 8: Lolita (1955): The Ethics of the Telling and the Ethics of the Told

Initial Questions

Initiation

From Initiation to Interaction

Toward a Plot of Narration

Ethics of the Telling and Ethics of the Told

Arrival and Farewell

Limits of the Transformation and Further Ethical Consequences

Notes

References

Further Reading

Chapter 9: The Crying of Lot 49 (1966): Mimetic Protagonist, Thematic–Synthetic Storyworld

The Initiation and Launch

The Voyage

The Open-ended Arrival and Final Configuration

Notes

References

Further Reading

Chapter 10: Beloved (1987): Sethe's Choice and Morrison's Ethical Challenge

The Beginning: Exposition, Initiation, Launch

The Voyage

Connections and Reconfigurations

Arrival and Farewell

Notes

References

Further Reading

Chapter 11: Freedom (2010): Realism after Postmodernism

Initial Reception

Freedom: Initial Questions

The Beginning: Good Neighbors

“Mistakes Were Made”: Reconfigurations and the Ethics of the Telling

“2004”: The Ethics of Interpretation

“2004”: The Personal and the Political

“Mistakes Were Made, Part Two” and “Canterbridge Estates Lake”: Arrival, Farewell, and Final Configuration

Final Judgments

Notes

References

Index

READING THE NOVEL

General Editor: Daniel R. Schwarz

The aim of this series is to provide practical introductions to reading the novel in both the British and Irish, and the American traditions.

PublishedReading the Nineteenth-Century NovelHarry E. Shaw andAlison CaseReading the Modern British and Irish Novel 1890–1930Daniel R. SchwarzReading the Novel in English 1950–2000Brian W. ShafferReading the American Novel 1780–1865Shirley SamuelsReading the American Novel 1865–1914G. R. ThompsonReading the American Novel 1920–2010James PhelanForthcomingReading the Contemporary Irish Novel 1987–2007Liam HarteReading the European NovelDaniel R. Schwarz

This edition first published 2013 © 2013 James Phelan

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell's publishing program has been merged with Wiley's global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Phelan, James, 1951– Reading the American novel 1920–2010 / James Phelan. pages cm Includes index. ISBN 978-0-631-23067-0 (cloth) 1. American fiction–20th century–History and criticism. 2. Books and reading–United States. I. Title. PS379.P49 2013 813′.509–dc23 2012046829

Cover image: Roy Lichtenstein, Illustration for “De Denver au Montana, Départ 27 Mai 1972” (II), from La Nouvelle Chute de l'Amérique, 1992, etching and aquatint. © The Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2012.

Cover design: Nicki Averill Design

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Acknowledgments

In the beginning, there was Dan Schwarz who, as editor of the Reading the Novel Series, believed I could do this book. Along the way were many people at Wiley-Blackwell who provided advice and support. I am especially grateful to Ben Thatcher who was consistently encouraging, patient, and helpful. I am indebted to Brian McHale and Paul McCormick for incisive readings of the Introduction and Chapter 8, respectively. I am grateful to Brian McAllister for substantial help with citations and to Matthew Poland for valuable help with proof-reading. I also owe a debt to my colleague in the History Department at Ohio State, Stephen Kern, for organizing the modernist reading group. Although this book pursues what I call rhetorical reading rather than historicist reading (of one kind or another), the meetings of the group and Steve's own work have been very beneficial to my thinking about the relations between history and literature. Peter J. Rabinowitz offered valuable comments on the Introduction and on Chapter 6. More than that, I have learned a great deal about rhetorical reading from our many conversations over the years and from his own work. Portions of Chapter 1 are based on the collaboration we did for our contribution to Narrative Theory: Core Concepts and Critical Debates (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2012).

As always, my deepest gratitude goes to my wife, Betty Menaghan, who every day gives me a rhetorician's most prized gifts, understanding and love.

Some previously published material has made its way into this book though no chapter is a straightforward reprint of a previously published piece. I am grateful for permission to reprint.

Chapter 3 draws on material from “Reexamining Reliability: The Multiple Functions of Nick Carraway.” Narrative as Rhetoric. Columbus: Ohio State University Press; 1996: 105–118; and “Rhetoric and Ethics in The Great Gatsby; or, Fabula, Progression, and the Functions of Nick Carraway.” In Approaches to Teaching The Great Gatsby (eds J.R. Bryer and N.P. VanArsdale). New York: Modern Language Association; 2009: 99–110.

Chapter 4 draws on material from “Voice, Distance, Temporal Perspective, and the Dynamics of A Farewell to Arms.” In Narrative as Rhetoric; and from “Evaluation and Resistance: The Case of Catherine Barkley.” In Reading People, Reading Plots. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1989.

Chapter 6 draws on material from “Voice, Politics, and Judgments in Their Eyes Were Watching God: The Initiation, the Launch, and the Debate about the Narration.” Analyzing World Fiction: New Horizons in Narrative Theory (ed. F.L. Aldama). Austin: University of Texas Press; 2011: pp. 57–73.

Chapter 8 draws on material from “Estranging Unreliability, Bonding Unreliability, and the Ethics of Lolita.” Narrative 2007; 15: 222–238; and “Dual Focalizaton, Discourse as Story, and Ethics.” In Living to Tell about It: A Rhetoric and Ethics of Character Narration by James Phelan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005.

Chapter 9 draws on “Sethe's Choice and Toni Morrison's Strategies: The Beginning and Middle of Beloved.” Experiencing Fiction. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2007.

Introduction: Reading the American Novel, 1920–2010

James Phelan

Whenever I tell someone the title of this book, I feel as if I am revealing my hubris. “Reading the American Novel, 1920–2010” sounds like a boast about all the difficult things its author is promising to do. At least the following are implied. (1) Relate the complex history of the United States to its literary history over this 90-year period. (2) Draw on a vast database of primary works—and of relevant scholarship about them—in order to zero in on the story of the novel across the periods of modernism and postmodernism, a story that will track: the genre's changing subject matters; its dominant thematic, political, and ethical concerns; its evolving conventions, forms, structures, and techniques; its diverse cultural effects; and its shifting status within American culture. (3) Explain and apply a trenchant approach to reading the novel. (4) Offer substantial analyses of a range of individual novels published across those 90 years.

Let me be frank: my hubris is not so great that I will try to fulfill all those promises in the 110,000 words or so I have at my disposal. Besides, as the bibliography indicates, other scholars have collectively done numerous book-length studies on each of these separate tasks—and, indeed, on subsets of them. I do, however, possess the necessary ambition and sufficient confidence to want to fulfill the third and fourth promises, and I believe that I can use this chapter (in conjunction with those readings) to take a few steps toward a more adequate fulfillment of the first two implicit promises. I have, therefore, come to think that a more accurate, albeit far more cumbersome, title for this book would be What a Broad Overview of Twentieth-Century American History, Especially Its Literary History, Some Principles of Rhetorical Reading, and the Detailed Analyses of Ten Diverse and Impressive Works Suggest about the American Novel, 1920–2010. But even this more modest project presents a significant challenge: to provide a solid foundation for studies whose ambitions are to fulfill the first two promises.

Broad Overview, Part One: History ↔ Literary Period ↔ Literary Work

In the most general terms, we can think of the history of the American novel in our 90-year period as part of the larger history of American literature. And American literature is itself a complex body of cultural expression that includes the oral and written literature of American Indians, writings by Europeans who explored the New World, by the English colonists and their imported African slaves, and then by the various inhabitants of the new nation, the United States of America, and their descendants. Since the early days of that nation, writers have been drawn to explore—and in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries critics have been drawn to highlight—the issue of American identity: what does it mean to be an American, how do Americans relate to the Old World of Europe, how do non-European Americans (the slaves and their descendants, the American Indians, the Chinese who came to work on the transcontinental railroad and then stayed, and other people of color) figure into the national narrative? As I discuss the ten novels I have chosen to analyze in some detail, I will be stressing their collective diversity and their individual distinctiveness, but I want to start by acknowledging that this group, too, contributes to this now centuries-long exploration of Americanness.