Reassessing the Twentieth-Century Canon : From Joseph Conrad to Zadie Smith

The collection brings together experts in the field of twentieth-century writing to provide a volume that is both comprehensive and innovative in its discussion of a set of newly canonical texts. The book includes new applications of philosophical and critical thinking to established texts. Front Matter....Pages i-xv Introduction....Pages 1-12 Snags in the Fairway: Reading Heart of Darkness....Pages 13-26 ‘Hasn’t got any name’: Aesthetics, African Americans and Policemen in The Great Gatsby....Pages 27-42 Urban Spaces, Fragmented Consciousness, and Indecipherable Meaning in Mrs Dalloway....Pages 43-55 D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover in the New Century: Literary Canon and Bodily Episteme....Pages 56-74 A Handful of Dust Realism: Modernism/Irony: Sympathy....Pages 75-90 Studied Ambivalence: The Appalling Strangeness of Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock....Pages 91-108 “Come Down from Your Thinkin’ and Listen a Minute”: The Multiple Voices of The Grapes of Wrath....Pages 109-121 Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses Revisited....Pages 122-133 Time, Space, and Resistance: Re-Reading George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four....Pages 134-145 Lucky Jim: The Novel in Unchartered Times....Pages 146-160 Six Myths of On the Road, and Where These Might Lead Us....Pages 161-174 ‘Hundred-per-Cent American Con Man’: Character in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest....Pages 175-186 Herzog’s Masculine Dilemmas, and the Eclipse of the Transcendental “I.”....Pages 187-205 Beyond Postmodernism in Alasdair Gray’s Lanark....Pages 206-220 Gender Vertigo: Queer Gothic and Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus....Pages 221-234 Whole Families Paranoid at Night: Don DeLillo’s White Noise....Pages 235-249 Hooked on Classics: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit 25 Years On....Pages 250-265 Remembering and Disremembering Beloved: Lacunae and Hauntings....Pages 266-280 Embracing Uncertainty: Hanif Kureishi’s Buddha of Suburbia and The Black Album....Pages 281-293 Samad, Hancock, the Suburbs, and Englishness: Re-reading Zadie Smith’s White Teeth....Pages 294-309 Back Matter....Pages 310-319 Cover 1 Half-Title 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgements 10 Notes on Contributors 11 Introduction 17 1 Snags in the Fairway: Reading Heart of Darkness 29 2 'Hasn't got any name': Aesthetics, African Americans and Policemen in The Great Gatsby 43 3 Urban Spaces, Fragmented Consciousness, and Indecipherable Meaning in Mrs Dalloway 59 4 D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover in the New Century: Literary Canon and Bodily Episteme 72 5 A Handful of Dust: Realism: Modernism/Irony: Sympathy 91 6 Studied Ambivalence: The Appalling Strangeness of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock 107 7 "Come Down from Your Thinkin' and Listen a Minute": The Multiple Voices of The Grapes of Wrath 125 8 Faulkner's Go Down, Moses Revisited 138 9 Time, Space, and Resistance: Re-Reading George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four 150 10 Lucky Jim: The Novel in Unchartered Times 162 11 Six Myths of On the Road, and Where These Might Lead Us 177 12 'Hundred-per-Cent American Con Man': Character in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 191 13 Herzog's Masculine Dilemmas, and the Eclipse of the Transcendental "I." 203 14 Beyond Postmodernism in Alasdair Gray's Lanark 222 15 Gender Vertigo: Queer Gothic and Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus 237 16 Whole Families Paranoid at Night: Don DeLillo's White Noise 251 17 Hooked on Classics: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit 25 Years On 266 18 Remembering and Disremembering Beloved: Lacunae and Hauntings 282 19 Embracing Uncertainty: Hanif Kureishi's Buddha of Suburbia and The Black Album 297 20 Samad, Hancock, the Suburbs, and Englishness: Re-reading Zadie Smith's White Teeth 310 Select Bibliography 326 Index 328 The twentieth-century novel can now be considered to form a distinct and popular area of study. This edited collection brings together experts in the field of twentieth-century writing to provide a volume that is both comprehensive and innovative in its discussion of a set of newly canonical texts. From turn of the century texts such as Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899), through the work of acclaimed authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence, and right up to more contemporary examples including Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) and Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2000) this volume provides a lively yet informed re-evaluation of some of the twentieth-century's most significant and enduring literature. The emphasis in the collection is on a synthesis of original and established approaches to the texts, making the book particularly useful to newcomers to the field. The book employs a theoretically and philosophically informed approach but its style and language make it accessible to a wide audience.