The Post-Modern Aura: The Act of Fiction in an Age of Inflation - Softcover

Newman, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0810106698 ISBN 13: 9780810106697

Publisher: Northwestern University Press, 1985

Synopsis

"Inflation affects literary occupations and preoccupations quite as much as it does financial scrip." Starting from this premise, Charles Newman ventures forth on an irreverent, wide-ranging discussion of the "Post-Modern" attitude in fiction, culture, and sensibility. Newman questions the "revolutionary" claims of avant-garde novelists and literary theorists, but he is no less critical of the arguments of neoconservatives, neorealists, and advocates of "moral fiction." Newman argues that neither of these groups has confronted the unprecedented break with tradition entailed by an economics and culture of inflation. A combination of cultural critique, literary criticism, economic forecast, and historical jeremiad, The Post-Modern Aura is finally a positive statement, celebrating "The Act of Fiction" and suggesting how the forces which have been devaluing it might be overcome.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"The best thing I've read on the state of American culture in a long time." - Christopher Lasch

About the Author:

One of the United States's "best, and best-neglected" authors, Charles Newman (1938-2006) was an American novelist, critic and editor who taught at Northwestern (where he founded TriQuarterly magazine) and various other universities, and was the recipient of Fulbright, Guggenheim and Rockefeller grants, as well as the Morton Dawen Zabel award from the Academy of American Arts and Letters.

About this edition

• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Publication date: 1985
• ISBN 10: 0810106698
• ISBN 13: 9780810106697
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 203