Hopeful Monsters (British Literature) - Softcover

Mosley, Nicholas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1564782425 ISBN 13: 9781564782427

Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press, 2000

Synopsis

-- A sweeping, comprehensive epic, Hopeful Monsters tells the story of the love affair between Max, an English student of physics and biology, and Eleanor, a German Jewess and political radical. Together and apart, Max and Eleanor participate in the great political and intellectual movements which shape the twentieth century, taking them from Cambridge and Berlin to the Spanish Civil War, Russia, the Sahara, and finally to Los Alamos to witness the first nuclear test.
-- Hopeful Monsters received Britain's prestigious Whitbread Award in 1990.
-- Praising Mosley's ability to distill complex modes of thought, the New York Times called Hopeful Monsters a virtual encyclopedia of twentieth century thought, in fictional form.
-- First U.S. edition by Dalkey Archive ('90), most recent paperback by Vintage ('93).

About this title

Review

Like Sartre, Camus, and Kundera before him, Nicholas Mosley has put forth a supremely challenging work that relies as much on philosophical and political themes as pure storytelling. Max Ackerman and Eleanor Anders are ambitious intellectuals--British and German, respectively--whose fascination with the scientific trends and political upheaval of the 20th century take them around the world and, eventually, into each other's arms. Intensifying, perhaps complicating the narrative of this 1990 Whitbread Prize winner is Mosley's use as a metaphor the Talmudic myth of the Lamed-Vov, a tale of 36 upstanding people for whom God sustains life on Earth. Left unanswered is whether Ackerman and Anders are among them.

From the Back Cover

"A gigantic achievement that glows and grows long after it is put aside." - Independent on Sunday

"An expansive and liberating adventure of tests, quests, miracles and coincidences--It stands as a well-weathered, very benign, widespreading kind of tree, drawing sustenance from the dark earth of a 20th-century experience, and allowing all kinds of unexpected illuminations to shine through." - Observer

"A major novel--profound--frequently funny, sometimes painful, sometimes moving that asks fundamental questions about the nature of experience." - The Scotsman

Edition details

• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1564782425
• ISBN 13: 9781564782427
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 550