The Reader in Modernist Fiction

by Brian Richardson

Overview

Many major modernists – including Henry James, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Ford Madox Ford, Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, Elizabeth Bowen, Vladimir Nabokov and Ralph Ellison – wrote central scenes describing characters reading. In most cases, the readers depicted suffer unfortunate fates. Intriguingly, the act of reading is also often intertwined with sexual activities. The Reader in Modernist Fiction analyses the construction of fictional readers, tracing their development and transformation over the first half of the twentieth century. Brian Richardson explores how the effects of reading are represented within modernist and postmodern fiction, and studies misreading as a personal limitation, sexual invitation, aesthetic allegory and ideological critique.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399528368
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	05/31/2024
Edition description:	87,655
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Brian Richardson is a Professor in the English Department of the University of Maryland and former president of the Joseph Conrad Society of America. He is the author of several books, including A Poetics of Plot for the Twenty-first Century: Theorizing Unruly Narratives (2019) and Unnatural Voices: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction (2006). He is the editor or co-editor of ten volumes, including Narrative Beginnings: Theories and Practices (2009) and a special issue of Conradiana on “Conrad and the Reader” in 2002. He has written numerous articles and book chapters on twentieth century authors, particularly Conrad, Joyce, Woolf and Beckett, in which he discusses voice, interpretation, plot, closure, class, the reader, character and the narratives of literary history. Website: https://brianerichardson.weebly.com

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction: Modernist Hieroglyphics and the Implicated Reader

1. From James to Conrad and Ford: Suppressed Narratives, Subaltern Reading, and the Drama of Interpretation

2. The Fate of Reading in the Work of Joyce: Illusion, Demystification, Sexuality

3. "Books Were Not in Their Line": The Use and Abuse of Reading in Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf

4. The Dangers of Reading from Edith Wharton to Ralph Ellison

5. Reading Ruins: From Modernism to the Illegible Texts of Postmodernism and Beyond

Conclusion: The Stories of Modern Fiction, the End(s) of Misreading, and the Other Reader’s Response

Bibliography of Works Cited

Index

Editorial Reviews

This book’s exciting discovery – the "critical reader" cultivated by modernist fiction across a vast range of texts and authors – is a timely affirmation of modernism’s cultural value as well as a welcome reminder of the profound wisdom that has established Brian Richardson as our leading authority on modernism’s narrative dynamics.

Jesse Matz