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Figures of Catastrophe: The Condition of Culture Novel
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About this ebook
A bold new vision of the modern English novel
The leading critic Francis Mulhern uncovers a hidden history in the fiction of the past century, identifying a central new genre: the condition of culture novel. Reading across and against the grain of received patterns of literary association, tracing a line from Hardy and Forster, through Woolf, Waugh and Bowen, to Barstow, Fowles, Rendell, Naipaul, Amis, Kureishi and Smith, he elucidates the recurring topics and narrative logics of the genre, showing how culture emerges as a special ground of social conflict, above all between classes. The narrative evaluations of culture’s ends—the aspirations and the destinies of those whose lives are the subject of these novels—grow steadily darker over time, and the writing itself grows more introverted.
A concluding discussion elicits the characteristics of the English condition of culture novel, in an international setting, and closes in, finally, on the central conundrum of the genre: its uncanny reprise, in its own plane, of the historical arc of the modern labour movement in Britain, from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century through its post-war heyday to the seemingly inexorable decline of recent decades.
The leading critic Francis Mulhern uncovers a hidden history in the fiction of the past century, identifying a central new genre: the condition of culture novel. Reading across and against the grain of received patterns of literary association, tracing a line from Hardy and Forster, through Woolf, Waugh and Bowen, to Barstow, Fowles, Rendell, Naipaul, Amis, Kureishi and Smith, he elucidates the recurring topics and narrative logics of the genre, showing how culture emerges as a special ground of social conflict, above all between classes. The narrative evaluations of culture’s ends—the aspirations and the destinies of those whose lives are the subject of these novels—grow steadily darker over time, and the writing itself grows more introverted.
A concluding discussion elicits the characteristics of the English condition of culture novel, in an international setting, and closes in, finally, on the central conundrum of the genre: its uncanny reprise, in its own plane, of the historical arc of the modern labour movement in Britain, from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century through its post-war heyday to the seemingly inexorable decline of recent decades.
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Author
Francis Mulhern
Francis Mulhern (born 1952) comes from Enniskillen in Northern Ireland. He was educated at University College Dublin and the University of Cambridge. His books include The Moment of 'Scrutiny' and Culture/Metaculture. He is Associate Editor of New Left Review.
Read more from Francis Mulhern
Lives on the Left: A Group Portrait Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFigures of Catastrophe: The Condition of Culture Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
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Reviews for Figures of Catastrophe
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
2 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A very detailed book on the origins of the novel.
The author gives his opinion on books such as "Jude the Obscure", "Howard's End" and many others.
I must say, having read these novels in the past, I hadn't looked at them in the same way, but will revisit them and see what I can deduce!
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Verso Books via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.