Understanding Julian Barnes (Understanding Contemporary British Literature) - Softcover

Moseley, Merritt

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1570038759 ISBN 13: 9781570038754

Publisher: University of South Carolina Press, 2009

Synopsis

Understanding Julian Barnes surveys the career of an innovative British novelist who has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize on three occasions. In this analysis of Barnes's distinctive qualities and of his place in the British literary establishment, Merritt Moseley suggests that Barnes's greatest achievement is his ability to resist summary and categorization by imagining each book in a dramatically original way. In evaluating Barnes's fiction, Moseley discusses the novelist's admiration for Gustave Flaubert, identifies his technical and thematic concerns, and explores the intrigue surrounding his divided career as a writer of serious novels, published under his own name, and of detective thrillers, published under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh. Moseley provides close readings of Barnes's book-length works, defending the writer against the charge that some of these volumes should not be considered novels at all and examining his commitment to writing books rich in the exploration of serious ideas.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

A telling assessment of the divergent works of a daring British writer

About the Author:

Merritt Moseley is a professor of literature and language and Key Center Professor at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. He has written widely on recent British and Irish fiction and is the author of two other titles in this series, Understanding Kingsley Amis and Understanding Michael Frayn.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1570038759
• ISBN 13: 9781570038754
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 198