Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel
"James Wood has been called our best young critic. This is not true. He is our best critic; he thinks with a sublime ferocity."—Cynthia Ozick

Following the collection The Broken Estate—which established James Wood as the leading critic of his generation—The Irresponsible Self confirms Wood's preeminence, not only as a discerning judge but also as an appreciator of contemporary novels.

In twenty-three passionate, sparkling dispatches, he effortlessly connects his encyclopedic, passionate understanding of the literary canon with an equally earnest and appreciative view of the most discussed authors writing today, including Franzen, Pynchon, Rushdie, DeLillo, Naipaul, David Foster Wallace, and Zadie Smith.

This collection includes Wood's famous and controversial attack on "hysterical realism", and his sensitive but unsparing examinations of White Teeth and Brick Lane. The Irresponsible Self is indispensable reading for anyone who cares about modern fiction.

1103059677
Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel
"James Wood has been called our best young critic. This is not true. He is our best critic; he thinks with a sublime ferocity."—Cynthia Ozick

Following the collection The Broken Estate—which established James Wood as the leading critic of his generation—The Irresponsible Self confirms Wood's preeminence, not only as a discerning judge but also as an appreciator of contemporary novels.

In twenty-three passionate, sparkling dispatches, he effortlessly connects his encyclopedic, passionate understanding of the literary canon with an equally earnest and appreciative view of the most discussed authors writing today, including Franzen, Pynchon, Rushdie, DeLillo, Naipaul, David Foster Wallace, and Zadie Smith.

This collection includes Wood's famous and controversial attack on "hysterical realism", and his sensitive but unsparing examinations of White Teeth and Brick Lane. The Irresponsible Self is indispensable reading for anyone who cares about modern fiction.

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Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel

Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel

by James Wood
Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel

Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel

by James Wood

Paperback(First Edition)

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Overview

"James Wood has been called our best young critic. This is not true. He is our best critic; he thinks with a sublime ferocity."—Cynthia Ozick

Following the collection The Broken Estate—which established James Wood as the leading critic of his generation—The Irresponsible Self confirms Wood's preeminence, not only as a discerning judge but also as an appreciator of contemporary novels.

In twenty-three passionate, sparkling dispatches, he effortlessly connects his encyclopedic, passionate understanding of the literary canon with an equally earnest and appreciative view of the most discussed authors writing today, including Franzen, Pynchon, Rushdie, DeLillo, Naipaul, David Foster Wallace, and Zadie Smith.

This collection includes Wood's famous and controversial attack on "hysterical realism", and his sensitive but unsparing examinations of White Teeth and Brick Lane. The Irresponsible Self is indispensable reading for anyone who cares about modern fiction.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780312424602
Publisher: Picador
Publication date: 04/01/2005
Edition description: First Edition
Pages: 336
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

James Wood was the chief literary critic of The Guardian and is a senior editor at The New Republic. His previous work includes The Book Against God (Picador, 2004).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Comedy and the Irresponsible Self3
Don Quixote's Old and New Testaments20
Shakespeare and the Pathos of Rambling31
How Shakespeare's "Irresponsibility" Saved Coleridge42
Dostoevsky's God59
Isaac Babel and the Dangers of Exaggeration75
Saltykov-Shchedrin's Subversion of Hypocrisy87
Anna Karenina and Characterization96
Italo Svevo's Unreliable Comedy109
Giovanni Verga's Comic Sympathy124
Joseph Roth's Empire of Signs137
Bohumil Hrabal's Comic World153
J. F. Powers and the Priests166
Hysterical Realism178
Jonathan Franzen and the "Social Novel"195
Tom Wolfe's Shallowness, and the Trouble with Information210
Salman Rushdie's Nobu Novel221
Monica Ali's Novelties234
Coetzee's Disgrace: A Few Skeptical Thoughts246
Saul Bellow's Comic Style258
The Real Mr. Biswas274
V.S. Pritchett and English Comedy287
Henry Green's England299
A Long Day at the Chocolate Bar Factory: David Bezmozgis's Compassionate Irony313
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