Reading the American Novel 1920–2010

Reading the Twentieth–Century American Novel, 1920–2010 isan instructive and insightful companion for students and scholarsof American literature. It situates the American novel within thebroader social, political, and artistic history of the twentiethand twenty–first centuries and equips its readers with key tools ofrhetorical analysis that will enhance their capacities to respondto the remarkable diversity of the novel throughout thisperiod.  James Phelan s survey keeps its eye on thehistorical trajectory of the genre, even as it considers eachindividual novel s responses to specific aspects of itshistorical moment. In addition, Phelan engages in variousproductive cross–novel comparisons and contrasts with regard tosuch matters as the uses of unreliable narration, strategies forbeginning and ending, and adaptations of the Bildungsroman.

 

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: Reading the American Novel, 1920 20101

1 Principles of Rhetorical Reading 23

2 The Age of Innocence (1920): Bildung and the Ethics of Desire39

3 The Great Gatsby (1925): Character Narration, Temporal Order,and Tragedy 61

4 A Farewell to Arms (1929): Bildung, Tragedy, and the Rhetoricof Voice 85

5 The Sound and the Fury (1929): Portrait Narrative as Tragedy105

6 Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937): Bildung and the Rhetoricand Politics of Voice 127

7 Invisible Man (1952): Bildung, Politics, and Rhetorical Design149

8 Lolita (1955): The Ethics of the Telling and the Ethics of theTold 171

9 The Crying of Lot 49 (1966): Mimetic Protagonist,
Thematic Synthetic Storyworld 193

10 Beloved (1987): Sethe s Choice and Morrison sEthical Challenge 213

11 Freedom (2010): Realism after Postmodernism 237

Index 261

James Phelan is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of English at Ohio State University, USA. His wide–ranging research in narrative theory includes influential studies of literary character, narrative progression, unreliable narration, and the ethics of reading as well as significant fresh interpretations of numerous twentieth–century American and British novels and short stories. The editor of Narrative, the journal International Society for the Study of Narrative, Prof Phelan is also a prolific author and editor whose credits include the prize–winning Living to Tell about It: A Rhetoric and Ethics of Character Narration (2005), the Blackwell Companion to Narrative Theory (2005) and the collaboratively written Narrative Theory: Core Concepts and Critical Debates (2012).

It is an excellent book.   (Primary Health Care,1 March 2015)

Reading the American Novelis also a rich experience, both in terms of the novels discussed and in terms of their literary–critical examination.   (Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas,13 January 2014)