Conrad, Faulkner, and the Problem of NonSense

by Maurice Ebileeni

Overview

Maurice Ebileeni explores the thematic and stylistic problems in the major novels of Joseph Conrad and William Faulkner through Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theories. Against the background of the cultural, scientific, and historic changes that occurred at the turn of the 20th century, describing the landscape of ruins bequeathed to humanists by the forefathers of the Counter-Enlightenment movement (Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, and Baudelaire), Ebileeni proposes that Conrad and Faulkner wrote against impossible odds, metaphorically standing at the edge of a chaotic abyss that initially would spill over into the challenges of literary production. Both authors discovered that underneath, behind, or within the intuitively comprehensible narrative layers there exists a nonsensical dimension, constantly threatening to dissolve any attempt at producing intelligible meaning.

Ebileeni argues that in Conrad's and Faulkner's major novels, the quest for meaning in confronting the prospects of nonsense becomes a necessary symptom of human experience to both avoid and engage the entropy of modern life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501306600
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	09/24/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	342 KB

About the Author

Maurice Ebileeni is Lecturer in the English Department at the University of Haifa, Israel.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

Introduction
The Problem of Nonsense

Chapter One: The Question of Authority
Conrad's Cynicism
Beyond Cynicism
The Institution of Nonsense

Chapter Two: An Alternative Perspective on the Aims of Narration
The Real
Conrad's Neurosis in Narration
Textual Psychosis in Faulkner's Novels
A Psychoanalytical Diagnosis of Nonsense

Chapter Three: Conrad's Symptom
Lord Jim
Heart of Darkness
Under Western Eyes

Chapter Four: Faulkner's Sinthome
The Sound and the Fury
As I Lay Dying

Conclusion

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Editorial Reviews

Conrad, Faulkner, and the Problem of NonSense is a novel contribution to the field of literary studies, which so far has not really taken to a Lacanian approach. Introducing a new approach with clarity, the book offers its readers an original methodology to tackle a literary text that is most welcome today. What is remarkable is that Ebileeni makes his points with clarity and simplicity, while at the same time refusing to give up on a firm methodology based on state-of-the-art theoretical considerations.
Claude Maisonnat, Emeritus Professor of Contemporary Literature, Université Lumière Lyon 2, France

In Conrad, Faulkner, and the Problem of NonSense, Maurice Ebileeni has written a sophisticated and original analysis of the ineffable, of what language is incapable of expressing directly, in several important works by Joseph Conrad and William Faulkner. Conrad was Faulkner's great mentor, and Ebileeni explores the surprising parallels among their themes and techniques. The theoretical foundations of the book - primarily Lacanian - are introduced with unusual clarity. Full of original insights for readers of Conrad and Faulkner, Conrad, Faulkner, and the Problem of NonSense is an intellectual treat, an appealing debut for an important young scholar.
Richard Ruppel, Professor of English, Chapman University, USA

This insightful book is the strongest Lacanian account we have of the connection between two of the most consequential world novelists of the past century. In a series of sensitive readings of Conrad's and Faulkner's major novels, Ebeleeni tells the story of the invention of 'nonsense'-the excess of reality and experience over contemporary capacities of convention and expression-as a modern art form, and the epic struggles of Conrad to 'endure' and Faulkner to 'prevail' over the implications of a world whose greatest concerns may lie in those realms beyond conventionalized 'sense.' An important and stimulating contribution.
Peter Lancelot Mallios, Associate Professor of English and American Studies, University of Maryland, USA

From the Publisher

This insightful book is the strongest Lacanian account we have of the connection between two of the most consequential world novelists of the past century. In a series of sensitive readings of Conrad's and Faulkner's major novels, Ebeleeni tells the story of the invention of 'nonsense'-the excess of reality and experience over contemporary capacities of convention and expression-as a modern art form, and the epic struggles of Conrad to 'endure' and Faulkner to 'prevail' over the implications of a world whose greatest concerns may lie in those realms beyond conventionalized 'sense.' An important and stimulating contribution.

Peter Lancelot Mallios

In Conrad, Faulkner, and the Problem of NonSense, Maurice Ebileeni has written a sophisticated and original analysis of the ineffable, of what language is incapable of expressing directly, in several important works by Joseph Conrad and William Faulkner. Conrad was Faulkner's great mentor, and Ebileeni explores the surprising parallels among their themes and techniques. The theoretical foundations of the book - primarily Lacanian - are introduced with unusual clarity. Full of original insights for readers of Conrad and Faulkner, Conrad, Faulkner, and the Problem of NonSense is an intellectual treat, an appealing debut for an important young scholar.

Richard Ruppel

Conrad, Faulkner, and the Problem of NonSense is a novel contribution to the field of literary studies, which so far has not really taken to a Lacanian approach. Introducing a new approach with clarity, the book offers its readers an original methodology to tackle a literary text that is most welcome today. What is remarkable is that Ebileeni makes his points with clarity and simplicity, while at the same time refusing to give up on a firm methodology based on state-of-the-art theoretical considerations.

Claude Maisonnat