Troubling Late Modernism: Ethics, Feeling, and the Novel Form

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, modernist writers developed new techniques for depicting characters' thoughts, feelings, and desires, which revolutionized the novel form. Troubling Late Modernism explores how these techniques have been perversely reinvented by postwar writers, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Beckett, Toni Morrison, John Banville, J. M. Coetzee, and Eimear McBride, to cultivate disquieting affective attachments to protagonists compelled by violent or exploitative sexual desires. By interrogating the expressive power and ethical liabilities of modes of writing that give us intimate access to characters' inner lives, late modernism poses fundamental philosophical questions about emotion and its inseparability from knowledge and ethical deliberation.

Format: Hardback
Length: 320 pages
Publication date: 27 October 2022
Publisher: Oxford University Press

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a remarkable shift occurred in the novel form as modernist writers introduced innovative techniques to depict characters' thoughts, feelings, and desires. This revolutionary approach transformed the literary landscape and continues to be a subject of intense debate among novelists and critics. However, a darker side to this evolution emerged with the emergence of troubling late modernism. This book explores how certain influential and innovative writers of the postwar period have perversely reinvented these modernist techniques, employing them to cultivate unsettling affective attachments to protagonists driven by violent or exploitative sexual desires.

Through chapters on Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Beckett, Toni Morrison, John Banville, J. M. Coetzee, and Eimear McBride, Troubling Late Modernism uncovers how these writers exploit and extend modernist forms of narration to create profound connections with their protagonists. By delving into the expressive power and ethical liabilities of modes of writing that grant us intimate access to characters' inner lives, late modernism poses fundamental philosophical questions about emotion and its inseparable connection to knowledge and ethical deliberation. While some historians of the novel have praised late modernism's formal innovations as ethically and politically edifying, Troubling Late Modernism highlights their more disquieting potential for lending sympathy and depth to sentiments that are deemed inadmissible in our everyday lives.

Charting the characteristic fusion of aesthetic difficulty with emotional and ethical provocation in late modernism demands an approach that is attuned to the experience of reading these disturbingly erotic narratives. In dialogue with recent debates about critical method, Troubling Late Modernism presents a novel way of closely reading prose fiction that combines the insights of formalism and affect theory. By exploring the complex interplay between form and emotion, this book offers readers a fresh perspective on the novel form and its ability to provoke, challenge, and inspire.

Weight: 636g
Dimension: 241 x 163 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780192863331