The Decline of the Novel

The Decline of the Novel PDF Author: Joseph Bottum
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781587311987
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"The novel has lost its purpose, Joseph Bottum argues in this fascinating new look at the history of fiction. We have not transcended our need for what novels provide, but we no longer "read novels the way we used to." In a historical tour de force--the kind of sweeping analysis almost lost to contemporary literary criticism--Bottum traces the emergence of the novel from the modern religious formation of the individual soul and the atomized self. Reading everything from Jane Austen to genre fiction, Bottum finds a lack of faith in the ability of art to respond to the deep problems of existence. "The decline of the novel's prestige reflects and confirms a genuine cultural crisis," he writes. "The novel didn't fail us. We failed the novel." Told in faced-paced, engaging prose, Bottum's The Decline of the Novel is a succinct critique of classic and contemporary fiction--a must read for students of literary form, critics of contemporary art, and general readers who wish to learn, finally, what we all used to know: the deep moral purpose of reading novels." --back cover of book

The Decline of the Novel

The Decline of the Novel PDF Author: Joseph Bottum
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781587311987
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
"The novel has lost its purpose, Joseph Bottum argues in this fascinating new look at the history of fiction. We have not transcended our need for what novels provide, but we no longer "read novels the way we used to." In a historical tour de force--the kind of sweeping analysis almost lost to contemporary literary criticism--Bottum traces the emergence of the novel from the modern religious formation of the individual soul and the atomized self. Reading everything from Jane Austen to genre fiction, Bottum finds a lack of faith in the ability of art to respond to the deep problems of existence. "The decline of the novel's prestige reflects and confirms a genuine cultural crisis," he writes. "The novel didn't fail us. We failed the novel." Told in faced-paced, engaging prose, Bottum's The Decline of the Novel is a succinct critique of classic and contemporary fiction--a must read for students of literary form, critics of contemporary art, and general readers who wish to learn, finally, what we all used to know: the deep moral purpose of reading novels." --back cover of book

Decline and Fall

Decline and Fall PDF Author: Evelyn Waugh
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Paul Pennyfeather is a second-year theology student who, as a result of mistaken identity, has his “education discontinued for personal reasons.” He ends up as a schoolmaster at a fourth-rate school, hired despite not meeting any of the qualifications in their advertisement. He there encounters a cornucopia of eccentric characters, including another master who has a wooden leg, a former clergyman with capital-D Doubts, and a servant who tells everyone he’s rich, but with a different tale for each about why he’s posing as a servant. Paul’s time at school leads to romance with a student’s mother, and that in turn leads to enormous complications in Paul’s life. Inspired in part by his own experiences in school and as a schoolmaster, Evelyn Waugh’s first published novel, Decline and Fall, is a dark and occasionally farcical satire of British college life. It’s something of a perverse coming-of-age story, subverting the expected journey and ending that the archetype usually demands. Shining a devastating light on many of the societal struggles of post-WWI Britain, Waugh took his novel’s title from another work that revealed the ineluctable descent of a great society: Gibbons’ The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Waugh issued a new edition of Decline and Fall in 1960 that contained restored text that was removed by his publisher from the first edition. This Standard Ebooks edition follows the first edition. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

A New Age of Character

A New Age of Character PDF Author: Christopher Jessulat
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781773024677
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
"A New Age of Character: A Powerful and Inspirational Look at Modern Life and Love was written and composed by author Isaac Amadi to capture the attention of the growing generation, which centers on teenagers, youth, and young adults. In "A New Age of Character," you will experience a self reality check and develop a deeper sense of the nature of love and character to its togetherness. This book is also a practical example to draw our attention to the new age of character which, according to Mr. Amadi, refers to the period of time when there has to be a prevailing sense of the interconnectedness of all mankind, of a common fact to the living love we proclaim and is generally understood in one language, a language that speaks to us all in one meaning."--

Reading at Risk

Reading at Risk PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Arts surveys
Languages : en
Pages : 74

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Book Description


The Modernist Novel and the Decline of Empire

The Modernist Novel and the Decline of Empire PDF Author: John Marx
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521120814
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
John Marx argues that the early twentieth century was a key moment in the emergence of modern globalization, rather than simply a period of British imperial decline. Modernist fiction was actively engaged in this transformation of society on an international scale. The very stylistic abstraction that seemed to remove modernism from social reality, in fact internationalized the English language. Rather than mapping the decline of Empire, modernists such as Conrad and Woolf celebrated the shared culture of the English language as more important than the waning imperial structures of Britain.

Jane Austen

Jane Austen PDF Author: Thomas Keymer
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198861907
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
Jane Austen is one of the most widely-read novelists in the English language, and one of very few pre-Victorian writers to have a large popular following. This book situates Austen in the literary and historical context of her time, and combines critical introductions to each of her six major novels with an exploration of key themes of her work.

Yes

Yes PDF Author: Thomas Bernhard
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226043906
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
The narrator, a scientist working on antibodies and suffering from emotional and mental illness, meets a Persian woman, the companion of a Swiss engineer, at an office in rural Austria. For the scientist, his endless talks with the strange Asian woman mean release from his condition, but for the Persian woman, as her own circumstances deteriorate, there is only one answer. "Thomas Bernhard was one of the few major writers of the second half of this century."—Gabriel Josipovici, Independent "With his death, European letters lost one of its most perceptive, uncompromising voices since the war."—Spectator Widely acclaimed as a novelist, playwright, and poet, Thomas Bernhard (1931-89) won many of the most prestigious literary prizes of Europe, including the Austrian State Prize, the Bremen and Brüchner prizes, and Le Prix Séguier.

Locked On

Locked On PDF Author: Tom Clancy
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101566469
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description
Jack Ryan Jr.—along with the covert warriors of the Campus—continues to uphold his legendary father’s legacy of courage and honor in this thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Tom Clancy. Privately training with special forces, he’s honing his combat skills to continue his work within the Campus, hunting down and eliminating terrorists wherever he can—even as Jack Ryan Sr. campaigns to become President of the United States again. But what neither father nor son knows is that the political and personal have just become equally dangerous. A devout enemy of Jack Sr. launches a privately-funded vendetta to discredit him and connect him to a mysterious killing in his longtime ally John Clark’s past. All they have to do is catch him. With Clark on the run, it’s up to Jack Jr. to stop a growing threat emerging in the Middle East, where a corrupt Pakistani general has entered into a deadly pact with a fanatical terrorist to procure four nuclear warheads they can use to blackmail any world power into submission—or face annihilation.

The Decline of Life

The Decline of Life PDF Author: Susannah R. Ottaway
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521815802
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
The Decline of Life is an ambitious and absorbing study of old age in eighteenth-century England. Drawing on a wealth of sources - literature, correspondence, poor house and workhouse documents and diaries - Susannah Ottaway considers a wide range of experiences and expectations of age in the period, and demonstrates that the central concern of ageing individuals was to continue to live as independently as possible into their last days. Ageing men and women stayed closely connected to their families and communities, in relationships characterised by mutual support and reciprocal obligations. Despite these aspects of continuity, however, older individuals' ability to maintain their autonomy, and the nature of the support available to them once they did fall into necessity declined significantly in the last decades of the century. As a result, old age was increasingly marginalised. Historical demographers, historical gerontologists, sociologists, social historians and women's historians will find this book essential reading.

The Decline of the West

The Decline of the West PDF Author: Oswald Spengler
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195066340
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description
Spengler's work describes how we have entered into a centuries-long "world-historical" phase comparable to late antiquity, and his controversial ideas spark debate over the meaning of historiography.