Modern Novelists – serie

John Fowles has the distinction of being both a best-selling novelist and one whose work has earned the respect of academic critics. In this clear and concise book, James Acheson traces the development of Fowles' novels from The Collector, The Magus and The French Lieutenant's Woman, each concerned with the quest for self-knowledge, through to The Ebony Tower and Daniel Martin. He shows how the sexual element of Fowles' early novels is interwoven with the author's interest in French existentialism as, in his first three works of fiction, Fowles' main characters are obliged not only to struggle with sexual issues but to choose between living a life of humdrum conventionality, on the one hand, or seeking to discover a sense of their own 'authenticity' on the other. By the 1970s, however, Fowles' interest in existentialism had begun to wane, his disillusionment taking different forms in The Ebony Tower, a collection of short stories, and in Daniel Martin, the novel that followed it. In A Maggot, his most recent work of fiction, he abandons existentialism in favour of a more generalised philosophical issue - the limits of human knowledge.

Much good criticism of Mrquez came in the wake of One Hundred Years of Solitude and the perception of his fiction has been dominated by that novel. It seemed the implicit goal to which the earlier fiction has been striving. By concentrating on the later novels, including The General in his Labyrinth, this study brings out the internal dialogue between the novels so that One Hundred Years of Solitude then stands out, like Don Quixote in Cervantes' oeuvre, as untypical yet more deeply representative. Behind the popular impact of its 'magical realism' lies Mrquez' abiding meditation on the nature of fictional and historical truth.

This book provides an overview of Mark Twain's work and a close critical analysis of the forms and themes of his major texts. The author uses recent cultural and literary theory to re-examine Twain's travel writing and fiction, writing in a jargon-free and accessible manner. He focuses on Twain's humour and his attitudes to such subjects as boyhood, nationality, race relations, technology, and capitalist expansion, and shows how his work reflects anxieties both about changes in the social and industrial order in post Civil-War America and the status of the individual within it.

The five novels E.M.Forster published during his lifetime enjoyed a popularity and critical acclaim out of all proportion to this modest fictional output or the books'' apparent pretensions: certainly since the publication of Howards End in 1910 he has been regarded almost without question as one of the foremost novelists of the century. Since his death in 1970 there has been no slackening of interest; the appearance of a comprehensive biography, an edition of his letters, a major critical edition of his works, and other scholarly and critical aids has given fresh impetus to the reassessment of his achievement. The present study provides a short account of Forster''s life and career, followed by detailed discussion of his major writings. A final chapter considers his posthumous novel Maurice and the short stories. Although his most significant work belongs to the first quarter of the twentieth century, Forster''s alliance of wit and seriousness, satiric comedy and moral insight, gives it a perennial freshness for new generations of students and readers.

The starting point of A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past) is an experience everyone has had. We have all had a physical sensation that has reminded us so vividly of a moment in our past that we have almost ceased to be aware of the present. Marcel Proust immortalized this in the first volume of his fifteen-volume novel, in 1913. But the novel, completed just before his death in 1922, deals with many other themes. It is an account of how the narrator, Marcel, discovers his vocation as an artist and explores the nature of art. As a psychological novel, it studies jealousy and how the emotional traumas we undergo in childhood can influence our adult lives. It is the first major novel to offer a detailed account of male and female homosexuality. It is a satirical analysis of French upper-class society at the turn of the century. It also shows how this society changes with time. Philip Thody offers a straightforward analysis of how Proust''s novel is constructed, what it contains, and how its themes can be related to our experiences as members of American or English society in the late twentieth century. He explains one of the most complex prose narratives in terms that both educate and entertain the reader who may be unfamiliar with Proust and his work. ''...(Thody) writes in a most engagingly down-to-earth manner, conveying a real sense of enthusiasm, and positively luring the reader towards his potentially daunting subject ... Professor Thody''s contribution holds its own with ease.'' - Modern and Contemporary France.

Much good criticism of Mrquez came in the wake of One Hundred Years of Solitude and the perception of his fiction has been dominated by that novel. It seemed the implicit goal to which the earlier fiction has been striving. By concentrating on the later novels, including The General in his Labyrinth, this study brings out the internal dialogue between the novels so that One Hundred Years of Solitude then stands out, like Don Quixote in Cervantes'' oeuvre, as untypical yet more deeply representative. Behind the popular impact of its ''magical realism'' lies Mrquez'' abiding meditation on the nature of fictional and historical truth.