Atrocity and Amnesia: The Political Novel Since 1945
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Author Description
What constitutes a political novel? In this sharply argued book Robert Boyers Demonstrates that the genre is very much alive and cites as evidence the works of writers such as Gunter Grass, V.S. Naipaul, Nadine Gordimer, and Milan Kundera.Boyers sees a political novel as an instrument for understanding the central experiences of our day-at its best an act of resistance to the comfortable association of actual conditions. He contends that they achieve their ends not with a soul-searching call to action but by quietly generating respect for the imagination that can never be content with things as they are. Working deliberately against the grain of the assumptions dominant in today's literary academy, Boyers treats the novels of Grass, Solzhenitsyn, Greene, Kundera, and others as criticisms of life rather then self-referring artifacts. In Atrocity and Amnesia, Boyers makes an important contribution to contemporary political thought.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This work investigates the definition and function of the political novel in the post-1945 era, arguing that such literature serves as a vital instrument for understanding contemporary experience. Robert Boyers, a noted critic and academic, examines how specific authors utilize narrative to resist the status quo and challenge dominant societal assumptions. He posits that these novels function as active criticisms of life rather than mere aesthetic objects, emphasizing the role of the imagination in political discourse.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Analysis of major post-1945 political novelists including Gunter Grass, V.S. Naipaul, Nadine Gordimer, and Milan Kundera.
- A theoretical framework for distinguishing political fiction from other narrative forms.
- Critical examination of the relationship between literary imagination and political resistance.
- Rebuttal of academic trends that treat novels as self-referring artifacts rather than social commentary.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars and critics frequently cite this text for its challenge to prevailing academic orthodoxies regarding the autonomy of the novel. Readers often note the intellectual rigor of Boyers' arguments, which position the political novel as a necessary tool for engaging with historical atrocity and collective memory.
Page Count:
268
Publication Date:
1985-09-12
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0195036204
ISBN-13:
9780195036206
History
Literary Criticism
In literature
Academic
Political fiction
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