City Codes: Reading the Modern Urban Novel

City Codes: Reading the Modern Urban Novel

by HanaWirth-Nesher (Author)

Synopsis

City Codes is a study of the representation of the city in the modern novel that takes difference as its point of departure, so that cities are read according to the cultural and social position of the urbanite. These urban narratives are analysed in the context of a cultural repertoire of city codes, from the architectural features of window and street to the social and historical signs of the landmark and the passer-by, with the emphasis on the subject's construction of his or her place as shaped by history, politics, nationality, gender, class and race. The study moves from boundaries inscribed onto the cityscape to distances experienced by the city dwellers; its 'real' and textual cities are Warsaw, Jerusalem, New York, Chicago, Paris, London and Dublin. The novels discussed are by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Amos Oz, Theodore Dreiser, Ralph Ellison, Henry James, Henry Roth, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.

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More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 260
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 26 Jan 1996

ISBN 10: 0521473144
ISBN 13: 9780521473149
Book Overview: This is a study of the representation of the city in the modern novel.

Media Reviews
Review of the hardback: 'The book, rich in bibliography, is beautifully illustrated, free of obscure academic jargon, and is a pleasure to read.' Jewish Chronicle
She provides an excellent comparative analysis of various cityscapes, showing how they vary as they are experienced by expatriates, tourists, provincials, immigrants, women, and African Americans. Moreover, the author makes good use of other disciplines, especially the visual arts, to illustrate key aspects of the fiction. Necessary reading for anyone interested in the modern novel. Choice
Hana Wirth-Nesher's study of the modern urban novel is remarkable for its clairty of argument, its impressive structural and rhetorical qualities, and its wonderful appreciation of difference... Brock Clarke, American Studies International
Wirth-Nesher's roster is impressive and each author's contribution is distinctive. Jerome Klinkowitz, American Studies
City Codes recuperates an earlier mode of literary discourse and redifines the modern urban novel. Neither the male nor female viewer is sufficient condition, Hana Wirth-Nesher's analysis implies, and in so doing she makes available for further study and exploration the riches of urban fiction. That is one of the most impressive achievements of this most important book. Comparative Literature