Selves At Risk: Patterns of Quest in Contemporary American Letters (Wisconsin Project on American Writers) - Hardcover

Hassan, Ihab

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0299123707 ISBN 13: 9780299123703

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989

Synopsis

In this era of supersonic jets, ubiquitous McDonalds, and pervasive Panasonics, in our coddled jacuzzi culture, our cybernetic society of acronyms and first names, does the spirit of quest endure? Indeed, from rain forests, across oceans, steppes, savannahs, and saharas to the peaks of the Andes or Himalayas, American writers still test the limits of human existence. They test spirit, flesh, marrow, and imagination in a timeless quest for meaning beyond civilization, at the razor edge of mortality. And they return with sun-cracked skin and gazes honed on horizons to tell us the tale.

"Ihab Hassan's new book on quests turns out to be a quest of his own. He takes us through an invigorating range of today's American writers as they test themselves against the far corners of our tattered planet. Hassan shows us how their quests (and, incidentally, his own) entwine risks, commitments, and desperate exercises in belief, how their aspirations are human but uniquely American. This is a book everyone interested in American culture can learn from&;and enjoy. Hassan's voice is one of graceful wisdom and passionate elegance, a refreshing landfall in today's turgid sea of criticism."
&;Norman N. Holland, University of Florida

About this title

About the Author

Ihab Hassan (1925–2015) was emeritus Vilas Professor of English and comparative literature at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and author of more than 300 articles and reviews and of numerous books including The Postmodern Turn: Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture.

Reviews

Modern quest literature, in Hassan's view, covers both fiction and nonfiction, fusing adventure, travel and autobiography in a search for wholeness. The writing questers discussed in this scholarly yet highly accessible study include solitary pilgrim Annie Dillard, spiritual seeker Paul Zweig and cultural exile Paul Bowles, as well as Joan Didion, John McPhee, Norman Mailer and Saul Bellow. These writers take risks, confront death, test beliefs, embrace cultural differences. A polished stylist, Hassan, a University of Wisconsin professor of literature, traces the modern reinvention of the genre in Paul Theroux's sardonic travelogues, in Alex Haley's search for ancestral roots and in Peter Matthiessen's wanderings born of naturalist and anthropological curiosity. Matthiessen, to him, is the contemporary American writer whose work may best exemplify the quest themes of peril, self-at-risk, encounter with otherness and urgent spiritual pursuits.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0299123707
• ISBN 13: 9780299123703
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 246