Political Fiction and the American Self - Softcover

Whalen-bridge, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 025206688X ISBN 13: 9780252066887

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 1998

Synopsis

      Examining political novels that have achieved (or been denied) canonical
        status, John Whalen-Bridge demonstrates how Herman Melville, Jack London,
        Norman Mailer, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Margaret Atwood have
        grappled with the problem of balancing radicalism and art. He shows that
        some books are more political than others, that some political novelists
        are more skillful than others, and that readers must allow for basic working
        distinctions between politics and aesthetics if we are to make useful
        judgments about which political novels to read, and why.
      "Whalen-Bridge demonstrates with clarity and power that the American
        political novel should not be ostracized but celebrated as a genre equal
        or superior to poetic and aesthetic ones." -- Tobin Siebers, author
        of Cold War Criticism and the Politics of Skepticism
 

About this title

About the Author:

John Whalen-Bridge is a visiting professor of English at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 025206688X
• ISBN 13: 9780252066887
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224