Wiley Reading the Modern European Novel since 1900: A Critical Study of Major Fiction from Proust's Swann's Way to Ferrante's Neapolitan Tetralogy (Reading the Novel)

Review "For over four decades, Daniel R. Schwarz has taught generations of students in the Cornell classroom and countless teachers through his thorough and yet accessible scholarship how to approach British Modernism from historical, psychological, and aesthetic perspectives. In recent years, Schwarz has turned his attention to a variety of other 20th Century topics including painting, the poetry of Wallace Stevens, the Holocaust, urban culture, and The New York Times. Now, in the first of a two volume study on Reading the European Novel to 1900, Schwarz extends his scope once more, this time moving back in time and across a continent to offer sensitive, well-informed close readings of classic novels from Cervantes in 17th Century Spain, Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, and Zola in 19th Century France, and Tolstoi and Dostoyevsky in 19th Century Russia. His focus is on the genre’s greatest examples from a time when the realist novel reached its apex even as it included folklore, fantasy, and magical realist elements on the cusp of the form's transition into modernist experimentalism and psychological exploration. Schwarz's study is chock full of judicious evaluation of characters, narratives devices, ethical commentary, and helpful information about historical and political contexts including the role of Napoleon, the rise of capitalism, trains, class divisions, transformation of rural life, and the struggle to define human values in a period characterized by debates between and among rationalism, spiritualism, and determinism. One experiences the pleasure of watching a master critic as he re-reads, savors, and passes on his hard-won wisdom about how we as humans read and why."—David Morris, Purdue University Product Description An exploration of the modern European novel from a renowned English literature scholarReading the Modern European Novel since 1900 is an engaging, in-depth examination of the evolution of the modern European novel. Written in Daniel R. Schwarz’s precise and highly readable style, this critical study offers compelling discussions on a wide range of major works since 1900 and examines recurring themes within the context of significant historical events, including both World Wars and the Holocaust. The author cites important developments in the evolution of the modern novel and explores how these paradigmatic works of fiction reflect intellectual and cultural history, including developments in painting and cinema. Schwarz focuses on narrative complexity, thematic subtlety, and formal originality as well as how novels render historical events and cultural developments Discussing major works by Proust, Camus, Mann, Kafka, Grass, di Lampedusa, Bassani, Kertesz, Pamuk, Kundera, Saramago, Muller and Ferrante, Schwarz explores how these often experimental masterworks pay homage to the their major predecessors--discussed in Schwarz’s ground-breaking Reading the European Novel to 1900--even while proposing radical departures from realism in their approach to time and space, their testing the limits of language, and their innovative ways of rendering the human psyche.Written for teachers and students by a highly-acclaimed scholar and including valuable study questions, Reading the Modern European Novel since 1900 offers a guide for a deeper understanding of how these original modern masters respond to both the past and present. From the Inside Flap An exploration of the modern European novel from a renowned English literature scholar Reading the Modern European Novel since 1900 is an engaging, in-depth examination of the evolution of the modern European novel. Written in Daniel R. Schwarz's precise and highly readable style, this critical study offers compelling discussions on a wide range of major works since 1900 and examines recurring themes within the context of significant historical events, including both World Wars and the Holocaust. The author cites important developments in the evolut