Ideas and the Novel
Mary McCarthy
Availability:
Ebook in EPUB format. Available for immediate download after we receive your order
Ebook in EPUB format. Available for immediate download after we receive your order
Publisher:
Open Road Media
Open Road Media
DRM:
Watermark
Watermark
Publication Year:
2013
2013
ISBN-13:
9781480441217
Description:
<DIV><DIV><b>In this eye-opening book, Mary McCarthy shares her love of the novel and her fear that it is becoming an endangered literary species</b></div><DIV><i><BR>“He had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it.”</i></div><DIV><i><BR></i>So begins Mary McCarthy’s fascinating critical analysis of the novel (and its practitioners) from her double-edged perspective as both reader and writer. The bestselling author of <i>The Group</i> takes T. S. Eliot’s quote about Henry James, written in 1918, as a jumping-off point to discuss how the novel has evolved—or not—in the last century. In this lively, erudite book, McCarthy throws down the gauntlet: Why did the nineteenth century produce novels of ideas while the twentieth century is so lacking in serious fiction? She winnows out the underachieving (read: overhyped) authors from the geniuses, explores why Jean Valjean personifies man’s conscience in Victor Hugo’s <I>Les Misérables</I>, and shows how Stendhal’s<i> </i><i>The Red and the Black </i>“illustrates the evil effects of reading.”<i> </i>She also tackles the role of the omniscient narrator<i> </i>and analogizes novels to air travel.</div><DIV><BR>With its exploration of authors from Balzac to D. H. Lawrence, <i>Ideas and the Novel </i>holds inviolate the idea of the novel as a means ultimately of liberating ideas.</div><DIV><BR>This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author’s estate.</div></div>