Unmaking Love: The Contemporary Novel and the Impossibility of Union (Literature Now)

The contemporary novel does more than revise our conception of love—it explodes it, queers it, and makes it unrecognizable. Rather than providing union, connection, and completion, love in contemporary fiction destroys the possibility of unity, harbors negativity, and foregrounds difference. Comparing contemporary and modernist depictions of love to delineate critical continuities and innovations, __Unmaking Love__ locates queerness in the novelistic strategies of Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith, Hanif Kureshi, Alan Hollinghurst, and Hari Kunzru. In their work, "queer love" becomes more than shorthand for sexual identity. It comes to embody thwarted expectations, disarticulated organization, and unnerving multiplicity. In queer love, social forms are deformed, affective bonds do not bind, and social structures threaten to come undone. __Unmaking Love__ draws on psychoanalysis and gender and sexuality studies to read love's role in contemporary literature and its relation to queer negativity. The contemporary novel does more than revise our conception of love--it explodes it, queers it, and makes it unrecognizable. Rather than providing union, connection, and completion, love in contemporary fiction destroys the possibility of unity, harbors negativity, and foregrounds difference. "Unmaking Love" explores the novelistic strategies that Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith, Hanif Kureshi, Alan Hollinghurst, and Hari Kunzru have used to fracture the ideal of romantic fusion. Working within the emergent field of love studies, "Unmaking Love" draws on cutting-edge theories in psychoanalysis and gender and sexuality studies to read love's role in contemporary literature and its relation to queer negativity. It also compares modern-day and modernist depictions of love to delineate critical continuities and innovations. The Author Examines How The Romantic Conception Of Love Has Been Critiqued, Destroyed, And Reoriented In Modernist And Contemporary Novels -- Introduction: Unmaking Love -- Lesbian Fantasy: Psychoanalysis, The Legacy Of Modernist Love, And Djuna Barnes' Nightwood -- The Ends Of Love: Amorous Redemption, The Passion For Negativity, James Joyce's Ulysses, And Hanif Kureishi's Intimacy -- Amorous Time: Nostalgia, Temporality, And The Pursuit Of Optimism In Alan Hollinghurst's The Line Of Beauty -- Cosmopolitan Love: Encountering Difference In Hari Kunzru's Transmission And Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled -- Conclusion: Any Generic Airport Thriller: Otherness, Cloud Atlas, And Contemporary Literature. Ashley T. Shelden. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. The contemporary novel does more than revise our conception of love#x97;it explodes it, queers it, and makes it unrecognizable. Rather than providing union, connection, and completion, love in contemporary fiction destroys the possibility of unity, harbors negativity, and foregrounds difference. Unmaking Love explores the novelistic strategies that Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith, Hanif Kureshi, Alan Hollinghurst, and Hari Kunzru have used to fracture the ideal of romantic fusion. Working within the emergent field of love studies, Unmaking Love draws on cutting-edge theories in psychoanalysis and gender a Introduction : unmaking love Lesbian fantasy : psychoanalysis, the legacy of modernist love, and Djuna Barnes's Nightwood The ends of love : amorous redemption, the passion for negativity, James Joyce's Ulysses, and Hanif Kureishi's Intimacy Amorous time : nostalgia, temporality, and the pursuit of optimism in Alan Hollinghurst's The line of beauty Cosmopolitan love : encountering difference in Hari Kunzru's Transmission and Kazuo Ishiguro's The unconsoled Conclusion : otherness, Cloud atlas, and contemporary literature. "The author examines how the romantic conception of love has been critiqued, destroyed, and reoriented in modernist and contemporary novels" -- Provided by publisher