The Novel: Language and Narrative from Cervantes to Calvino

The Novel: Language and Narrative from Cervantes to Calvino

by Andre Brink (Author)

Synopsis

The Postmodernist novel has become famous for the extremes of its narcissistic involvement with language. In this challenging and wide-ranging new study, Andre Brink argues that this self-consciousness has been a characteristic of the novel since its earliest stirrings. More specifically, every novel appears both to construct, and to be constructed by, its own notion of language, elaborated through all the strategies of narrative. Taking as his starting point 'the propensity for story' embedded in language he offers stimulating new readings of novels from Cervantes to Calvino, demonstrating that in many respects the old familiar texts may be more startingly modern, and the Postmodernist texts more firmly rooted in convention, than we tend to think.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 384
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 29 May 1998

ISBN 10: 0333684095
ISBN 13: 9780333684092

Media Reviews
'What a treat to explore the novel as a genre through the lucid eyes of Andre Brink, himself one of the world's foremost novelists! Starting from the premise that language, in all its playfulness and multiple variety, is the key to understanding this form of literature, Brink brilliantly explores and reinterprets a series of several texts. I particularly enjoyed the way in which the most traditional novels were revealed as contemporary and entirely relevant.' - Ariel Dorfman, Distinguished Research Professor of Literature and Latin American Studies 'Andre Brink's new study of the novel is the work of an important practitioner who also knows well the current state of criticism. It's a fine book, reaching across the historical and international variety of the novel, a form distinguished both by its linguistic exploration and its power of narrative. Students and lovers of the novel, the great modern form, should enjoy the book, with its fine journey from Cervantes to Calvino, with equal pleasure.' - Malcolm Bradbury