Prose of the World: Modernism and the Banality of Empire
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.62 (682 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0231156952 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 248 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-04-02 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Everyday life in the far outposts of empire can be static, empty of the excitement of progress. If narrative is traditionally enabled by the tremor, velocity, and excitement of the event, the historical and affective lack implied by the banal produces a narrative force that is radically new precisely because it suspends the conventional impulses of narration.. Saikat Majumdar suggests that this impoverished affective experience of colonial modernity significantly shapes the innovative aesthetics of modernist fiction. Ranging from James Joyce's deflated epiphanies to Amit Chaudhuri's disavowal of the grand spectacle of postcolonial national allegories, Majumdar foregrounds the banal as a key instinct of modern and contemporary fictionone that nevertheless remains submerged because of its antithetical relation to literature's intuitive function to engage or excite. Prose of the World explores the global life of this narrative aesthetic, from late-colonial
Saikat Majumdar is an assistant professor of English at Stanford University and the author of a novel, Silverfish.
New insights into the Quotidian Even though I was a bit apprehensive on reading a critical studyon the boredom and banality of quotidian in literature,this study has been an eyeopener especially withregards to the work of some of the authorsI truly detested during my graduate study in English.It provides new insights into the quotidian,away from the spectacles thatlitter any nationalistic agenda.Saikat has interesting perspectives about the quotidianexistence on the periphery of the empire which is in starkcontrast to th
(Derek Attridge, University of York)There are many impressive things in this book: it provides us with a powerful rethinking of the vexed relationship between empire and modernism, an unprecedented probing of the internal logic of the modernist movement, and a smart meditation on the role of the ordinary and banal in the making of the language of modernism. (Celiese Lypka ARIEL) . Prose of the World will serve as a reference point for future discussions of modernist and contemporary literature. (Contemporary Literature)An ambitious and original study that is indispensable reading for any scholars of modernism and postcolonial studies. Its insightful account of the experience of boredom and banality on the political and cultural periphery, and of writers' responses to this experience, will be valued by all those interested in the global transformations of modernism and the relation bet