Saul Bellow in His Times
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British Fiction Today
Birkbeck ePrints: an open access repository of the research output of Birkbeck College http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk Brooker, Joseph (2006). The middle years of Martin Amis. In Rod Mengham and Philip Tew eds. British Fiction Today. London/New York: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., pp.3-14. This is an author-produced version of a paper published in British Fiction Today (ISBN 0826487319). This version has been peer-reviewed but does not include the final publisher proof corrections, published layout or pagination. All articles available through Birkbeck ePrints are protected by intellectual property law, including copyright law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Citation for this version: Brooker, Joseph (2006). The middle years of Martin Amis. London: Birkbeck ePrints. Available at: http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/archive/00000437 Citation for the publisher’s version: Brooker, Joseph (2006). The middle years of Martin Amis. In Rod Mengham and Philip Tew eds. British Fiction Today. London/New York: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., pp.3-14. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk Contact Birkbeck ePrints at [email protected] The Middle Years of Martin Amis Joseph Brooker Martin Amis (b.1949) was a fancied newcomer in the 1970s and a defining voice in the 1980s. He entered the 1990s as a leading player in British fiction; by his early forties, the young talent had grown into a dominant force. Following his debut The Rachel Papers (1973), he subsidised his fictional output through the 1970s with journalistic work, notably as literary editor at the New Statesman. -
James Albert Michener (1907-97): Educator, Textbook Editor, Journalist, Novelist, and Educational Philanthropist--An Imaginary Conversation
DOCUMENT RESUME ED 474 132 SO 033 912 AUTHOR Parker, Franklin; Parker, Betty TITLE James Albert Michener (1907-97): Educator, Textbook Editor, Journalist, Novelist, and Educational Philanthropist--An Imaginary Conversation. PUB DATE 2002-00-00 NOTE 18p.; Paper presented at Uplands Retirement Community (Pleasant Hill, TN, June 17, 2002). PUB TYPE Opinion Papers (120) EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Authors; *Biographies; *Educational Background; Popular Culture; Primary Sources; Social Studies IDENTIFIERS *Conversation; Educators; Historical Research; *Michener (James A); Pennsylvania (Doylestown); Philanthropists ABSTRACT This paper presents an imaginary conversation between an interviewer and the novelist, James Michener (1907-1997). Starting with Michener's early life experiences in Doylestown (Pennsylvania), the conversation includes his family's poverty, his wanderings across the United States, and his reading at the local public library. The dialogue includes his education at Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania), St. Andrews University (Scotland), Colorado State University (Fort Collins, Colorado) where he became a social studies teacher, and Harvard (Cambridge, Massachusetts) where he pursued, but did not complete, a Ph.D. in education. Michener's experiences as a textbook editor at Macmillan Publishers and in the U.S. Navy during World War II are part of the discourse. The exchange elaborates on how Michener began to write fiction, focuses on his great success as a writer, and notes that he and his wife donated over $100 million to educational institutions over the years. Lists five selected works about James Michener and provides a year-by-year Internet search on the author.(BT) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. -
PHILIP ROTH and the STRUGGLE of MODERN FICTION by JACK
PHILIP ROTH AND THE STRUGGLE OF MODERN FICTION by JACK FRANCIS KNOWLES A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (English) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) July 2020 © Jack Francis Knowles, 2020 The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: Philip Roth and The Struggle of Modern Fiction in partial fulfillment of the requirements submitted by Jack Francis Knowles for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Examining Committee: Ira Nadel, Professor, English, UBC Supervisor Jeffrey Severs, Associate Professor, English, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Michael Zeitlin, Associate Professor, English, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Lisa Coulthard, Associate Professor, Film Studies, UBC University Examiner Adam Frank, Professor, English, UBC University Examiner ii ABSTRACT “Philip Roth and The Struggle of Modern Fiction” examines the work of Philip Roth in the context of postwar modernism, tracing evolutions in Roth’s shifting approach to literary form across the broad arc of his career. Scholarship on Roth has expanded in both range and complexity over recent years, propelled in large part by the critical esteem surrounding his major fiction of the 1990s. But comprehensive studies of Roth’s development rarely stray beyond certain prominent subjects, homing in on the author’s complicated meditations on Jewish identity, a perceived predilection for postmodern experimentation, and, more recently, his meditations on the powerful claims of the American nation. This study argues that a preoccupation with the efficacies of fiction—probing its epistemological purchase, questioning its autonomy, and examining the shaping force of its contexts of production and circulation— roots each of Roth’s major phases and drives various innovations in his approach. -
Discussion Guide
ROSENBERG LIBRARY Additional Resources: This program, slideshow, and links below can be PROGRAM AGENDA found at Rosenberg Library www.rosenberg-library.org Spring 2015 April 8 · May 21 For additional web resources, please visit: 12:00 noon Welcome & Introductions http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2014/07/goldfinch-donna-tartt- 12:00-12:20 Screening of Author Interview literary-criticism 12:20-1:00 Book Discussion http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et- mn-donna-tartt-goldfinch-warner-bros-pulitzer-20140728-story.html http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/carel-fabritius AUTHOR BIO Born in 1963, novelist Donna Tartt grew up in the small town of Grenada, Mississippi. Her love of literature was evident at an early age, with her first sonnet published at age thirteen. She enrolled the University of Mississippi in 1981, and made an immediate impression on her professors. Recognizing her talent, they encouraged her to transfer to the writing program at Bennington College, a liberal arts school in Vermont. It was there that she began writing her first novel, The Secret History. The book was published in 1992 and became an overnight sensation, making Tartt a literary celebrity at just 28 years old. Her second novel, The Little Friend, was published in 2002, and it too received critical acclaim. Tartt’s much-anticipated, 800- Rosenberg Library’s page third work, The Goldfinch, was released in 2013. It Museum Book Club provides a forum for received the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award, the 2014 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and the discovery and discussion, linking literary 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. -
John Updike, a Lyrical Writer of the Middle-Class More Article Man, Dies at 76 Get Urba
LIKE RABBITS Welcome to TimesPeople TimesPeople Lets You Share and Discover the Bes Get Started HOME PAGE TODAY'S PAPER VIDEO MOST POPULAR TIMES TOPICS Books WORLD U.S. N.Y. / REGION BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE HEALTH SPORTS OPINION ARTS STYL ART & DESIGN BOOKS Sunday Book Review Best Sellers First Chapters DANCE MOVIES MUSIC John Updike, a Lyrical Writer of the Middle-Class More Article Man, Dies at 76 Get Urba By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT Sig Published: January 28, 2009 wee SIGN IN TO den RECOMMEND John Updike, the kaleidoscopically gifted writer whose quartet of Cha Rabbit novels highlighted a body of fiction, verse, essays and criticism COMMENTS so vast, protean and lyrical as to place him in the first rank of E-MAIL Ads by Go American authors, died on Tuesday in Danvers, Mass. He was 76 and SEND TO PHONE Emmetsb Commerci lived in Beverly Farms, Mass. PRINT www.Emme REPRINTS U.S. Trus For A New SHARE Us Directly USTrust.Ba Lanco Hi 3BHK, 4BH Living! www.lancoh MOST POPUL E-MAILED 1 of 11 © 2009 John Zimmerman. All rights reserved. 7/9/2009 10:55 PM LIKE RABBITS 1. Month Dignit 2. Well: 3. GLOB 4. IPhon 5. Maure 6. State o One B 7. Gail C 8. A Run Meani 9. Happy 10. Books W. Earl Snyder Natur John Updike in the early 1960s, in a photograph from his publisher for the release of “Pigeon Feathers.” More Go to Comp Photos » Multimedia John Updike Dies at 76 A star ALSO IN BU The dark Who is th ADVERTISEM John Updike: A Life in Letters Related An Appraisal: A Relentless Updike Mapped America’s Mysteries (January 28, 2009) 2 of 11 © 2009 John Zimmerman. -
Dictionary of Midwestern Literature Volume One: the Authors Philip A
200 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Dictionary of Midwestern Literature Volume One: The Authors Philip A. Greasley, general editor (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2001. Pp. x, 666. Illustrations,suggestions for further reading, appendix, index. $59.95.) This volume presents, in alphabetical (that is, persons with their origins and/ order, approximately four hundred en- or most lasting affiliationswith the area) tries on individual authors. Each entry and “Midwesternliterature.” This ambi- begins with name, birth and death dates, guity has implications for the usefulness and major pseudonyms, and continues of the volume. Who is represented here, with sections on biography, literary sig- and on what basis? nificance, identification of major works, Anderson’s essay, for instance, con- and suggestions for further secondary cludes with the intriguing note that four reading. The entries are signed and in- of the eight American winners of the clude the institutional affiliations of some Nobel Prize in literature are midwest- one hundred contributors,all members erners: Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Heming- of the Society for the Study of Midwest- way, Saul Bellow, and Toni Morrison. By ern Literature,the project’s sponsor. This geographicaland cultural affiliation and volume is the first of a proposed three by attitude these four belong in this vol- for the Dictionary of Midwestern Litera- ume. The situation is less clear for other ture. Volume two, in encyclopedia-entry figures who also appear: Black Elk, born format, will cover important historical in Wyoming, raised in the northern and research sites, movements, themes, plains, and oblivious to the white man’s and genres; volume three will be a dis- cultural construct of “region”;Joyce Carol cursive, chapter-organized, literary his- Oates, whose connections to the region tory of the Midwest. -
When Is an Agrarian Not an Agrarian? a Reading of Robert Penn Warren’S “The Rb Iar Patch” Clare Byrne
Robert Penn Warren Studies Volume 10 Robert Penn Warren Studies Article 2 2016 When Is an Agrarian Not an Agrarian? A Reading of Robert Penn Warren’s “The rB iar Patch” Clare Byrne Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/rpwstudies Part of the American Literature Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Byrne, Clare (2016) "When Is an Agrarian Not an Agrarian? A Reading of Robert Penn Warren’s “The rB iar Patch”," Robert Penn Warren Studies: Vol. 10 , Article 2. Available at: https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/rpwstudies/vol10/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by TopSCHOLAR®. It has been accepted for inclusion in Robert Penn Warren Studies by an authorized administrator of TopSCHOLAR®. For more information, please contact [email protected]. When Is an Agrarian Not an Agrarian? A Reading of Robert Penn Warren’s “The Briar Patch” Clare Byrne King’s College, London Critics have tended to fall into one of two camps on the matter of Robert Penn Warren’s participation in the Southern Agrarian movement. They have either agreed with Hugh Ruppersburg that “Agrarianism is…the essential premise on which [Warren’s] American explorations have rested” (30), or with Paul Conkin that “never” did Warren “ever write a single essay in which he committed himself, philosophically, to any version of Agrarian ideology” (105). As a result, his literary output has often either been read as a direct expression of Southern Agrarianism, or exonerated from any connection to it. I propose that Warren’s relationship to Agrarianism was much more complex and conflicted than either of these positions allows, and that this is evident even in the essays he explicitly contributed to the movement. -
Philip Roth's Confessional Narrators: the Growth of Consciousness
Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1979 Philip Roth's Confessional Narrators: The Growth of Consciousness. Alexander George Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation George, Alexander, "Philip Roth's Confessional Narrators: The Growth of Consciousness." (1979). Dissertations. 1823. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/1823 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1979 Alexander George PHILIP ROTH'S CONFESSIONAL NARRATORS: THE GROWTH OF' CONSCIOUSNESS by Alexander George A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Loyola University of Chicago in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 1979 ACKNOWLEDGE~£NTS It is a singular pleasure to acknowledge the many debts of gratitude incurred in the writing of this dissertation. My warmest thanks go to my Director, Dr. Thomas Gorman, not only for his wise counsel and practical guidance, but espec~ally for his steadfast encouragement. I am also deeply indebted to Dr. Paul Messbarger for his careful reading and helpful criticism of each chapter as it was written. Thanks also must go to Father Gene Phillips, S.J., for the benefit of his time and consideration. I am also deeply grateful for the all-important moral support given me by my family and friends, especially Dr. -
Ideological Tension in Four Novels by Saul Bellow
Ideological Tension in Four Novels by Saul Bellow June Jocelyn Sacks Dissertation submitted in fulfilmentTown of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts atCape the Universityof of Cape Town Univesity Department of English April 1987 Supervisor: Dr Ian Glenn The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgementTown of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Cape Published by the University ofof Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University Contents Page. Abstract i Acknowledgements vi Introduction Chapter One Dangling Man 15 Chapter Two The Victim 56 Chapter Three Herzog 99 Chapter Four Mr Sammler's Planet 153 Notes 190 Bibliography 212 Abstract This study examines and evaluates critically four novels by Saul Bellow: Dangling Man, The Victim, Herzog and Mr Sammler's Planet. The emphasis is on the tension between certain aspects of modernity to which many of the characters are attracted, and the latent Jewishness of their creator. Bellow's Jewish heritage suggests alternate ways of being to those advocated by the enlightened thought of liberal Humanism, for example, or by one of its offshoots, Existenti'alism, or by "wasteland" ideologies. Bellow propounds certain ideas about the purpose of the novel in various articles, and these are discussed briefly in the introduction. His dismissal of the prophets of doom, those thinkers and writers who are pessimistic about the fate of humankind and the continued existence of the novel, is emphatic and certain. -
Henderson the Rain King and the Spiritual Quest
AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, Volume3, Number1. February 2019 Pp. 87 -99 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol3no1.7 “Imaginary Homelands”: Henderson the Rain King and the Spiritual Quest Ramzi B. Mohamed MARROUCHI Department of English, Faculty of Languages and Communication Sultan ZinalAbidin University Terengganu, Malaysia Mohd Nazri Latiff Azmi Department of English, Faculty of Languages and Communication Sultan ZinalAbidin University Terengganu, Malaysia Abstract: This paper investigates how and why the spiritual quest of Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King (1959) enigmatically results in madness. The identity of the American subject should be investigated in the light of his/her restless search of “Other modes of freedom” and imaginary homelands. -Pondering upon this, the researcher realizes that three fundamental questions need to be addressed: What are the aspects of Henderson's spiritual quest? -As a Jewish hero, how could Henderson be associated with quest, victimization and madness? Can one think about identity or identities? To unmask these blind spots, the theme of the quest will be investigated, first. The researcher shall trace Henderson's movement from a material world – New York – to a spiritual and romantic one, Africa. Second, Henderson's failure to cope with the new world and therefore his failure to (re) – construct the identity of the American character will be examined in details. This safely allows us to argue for the madness of the hero. The conclusion is that there is no ‘absolute identity’ to the American subject. Henderson's attempts to re-construct a “new identity” shall be seen in line with poststructuralist premises regarding “difference, multiplicity, other, cultural diversity.” Key Words: Alienation, Henderson the Rain King, Hegel, identity, Saul Bellow Cites as: MARROUCHI, R. -
THE QUEST OP the HERO in the NOVELS OP SAUL BELLOW By
THE QUEST OP THE HERO IN THE NOVELS OP SAUL BELLOW by BETTY JANE TAAPPE, B.A. A THESIS IN ENGLISH Submltted to the Graduate Paculty of Texas Technologlcal College In Partial Pulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OP ARTS 4e T3 I9CL /\/o. m Cop. Z ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I am <Jeeply lndebte<J to Professor Mary Sue Carlock for her dlrectlon of this thesls. 11 CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGpENT. 11 INTRODUCTÍON 7 . 1 Chapter I. PAILURE IN ISOLATION . 6 II. EXPERIENCE AS A TEST POR EXISTENCE. 25 III. "THE TRUTH COMES IN BLOWS". .... 5k IV. STATEMENT OP EXTERNAL EXPERIENCE AND INTELLECTUALITY 78 CONCLUSION 100 iii INTRODUCTION Many novels of the past few decades have been characterized by theraes which eraphasize human freedom, rebellion, fatalism, mechanical necessity, and obsession, and because of the tendency of the "raodern hero" to vacil- late in a somewhat precarious way between the prevalent themes of Promethean defiance and Sisyphean despair, there seems to have developed a pattern in modern literature, ironic and paradoxical, that involves the hero in a struggle for identity in a world that almost always is rejected by him as incoraprehensible or absurd. Because of the omnivorous nature of the novel as a literary form, both the intellectual therae of defiance and the raetaphysical "anguish" are presented not only in sophisticated, cosraopolitian, intellectual set- tings, but also in provincial atraospheres, where daily rou- tines, sounds, and sraells are very familiar. Therefore, the raodern novel or, as Howe prefers, the "post-raodem" novel, in raany ways serves as a docuraent on raan and his attempt to elicit meaning frora a world that alraost always proves to be irremediably absurd. -
Katarina Graah-Hagelbäck
School of Languages and Media Studies English Department Master Degree Thesis in Literature, 15 hp Course code: EN3053 Supervisor: Billy Gray The Description and Meaning of Faces in Selected Texts by Saul Bellow Katarina Graah-Hagelbäck Dalarna University English Department Degree Thesis Autumn 2011 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. A Few Words about Physiognomy 3 3. Faces as the “Reflection of the Soul”: What Faces Betray 5 4. How Bellow Depicts Faces 8 4.1. Descriptions of Some Individual Facial Features 9 4.1.1. Noses 9 4.1.2. Eyes 11 4.1.3. Mouths/Lips 13 4.1.4. Skin/Complexion 13 4.1.5. Teeth 15 4.2. Humorous Depictions 16 4.3. A Recurring Image and a Recurring Adjective 18 4.4 Ageing Faces 19 5. The Protagonists’ Relation to Their Own Faces 22 6. Faces as Representations of the Whole Character and of Humankind 24 6.1 Bellow and Levinas 29 7. Conclusion 31 Works Cited 33 1 1. Introduction “To see was delicious. Oh, of course. An extreme pleasure!” (Mr. Sammler’s Planet 147). Seeing, that is, visual impressions and renderings, appears to be an important element in the fiction of the American writer Saul Bellow (1915–2005): “the most basic activity of his fiction . is a matter of this very looking: the protagonist stares at the world” (Opdahl, “Strange Things” 14), and his prose could be said to work “through the acuteness and intensity of its seeing” (Clayton 293). Thus, although Bellow is in many respects “a novelist of intellect” (Fuchs 67), who often fairly wallows – or, rather, has his protagonists wallow – in intricate theoretical analyses and subtle reflections on everything human, he is also to a very high degree a sensual writer.