Modernist Literature: Challenging Fictions?

"Challenging Fiction" is a double entendre. This unusual book argues that modernist fiction is not only difficult (or challenging) to read, it also provokes readers to challenge the fictions that they live by. To read modernist literature in a way that unlocks its humor, its discomfiting insights, and its strong emotional undercurrents, a reader must be both receptive and resistant to the author’s perspective, actively challenging it with his or her own experience, knowledge, and sensibilities. Using writers as diverse as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Djuna Barnes, Oscar Wilde, and Jean Rhys, this book demonstrates that the rewards of "challenging fiction" are considerable, and unexpected.

Preface. Acknowledgments. Part I: Introduction. 1. Why Read Challenging Literature?. Part II: Readings. 2. Partnering: Holmes and Watson, Author and Reader, Lover and Loved, Man and Wife. 3. Window Painting: The Art of Blocking Understanding. 4. Watchman, What of the Night?. Conclusion. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

Vicki Mahaffey is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of York and a former Guggenheim Fellow and winner of both the Lindback Award and the Ira Abrams Award for teaching. Her previous publications include Reauthorizing Joyce (1988) and States of Desire: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, and the Irish Experience (1998).

"Ambitiously diverse and unsettling, a book that responds provocatively to the challenges it poses." –– David Bradshaw, University of Oxford "In this sharp, thoughtful and clearly–written book, modernism is not simply a descriptive category pigeon–holing a literary period; it is made both more problematic (as when its ending is linked with the holocaust) and empowering. Boldly redefining the field, Mahaffey throws a truly original light on the social, political and ethical relevance of main modernist ′chronicles of disorder,′ showing convincingly how they challenge repressive authorities as well as the reader′s ingrained passivity." ––Jean–Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania "This intelligent, strongly argued book reconceives the term ′modernist′ to mean modern literature that challenges the reader because of its originality, complexity, obscurity, or transgressive nature." ( Choice )