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The Lives of the Novel Thomas G. Pavel

The Lives of the Novel By Thomas G. Pavel

The Lives of the Novel by Thomas G. Pavel


£7.50
Condition - Very Good
Out of stock

Summary

Presents a history of the novel from ancient Greece to the vibrant world of contemporary fiction. This book argues that the driving force behind the novel's evolution has been a rivalry between stories that idealize human behavior and those that ridicule and condemn it.

The Lives of the Novel Summary

The Lives of the Novel: A History by Thomas G. Pavel

This is a bold and original original history of the novel from ancient Greece to the vibrant world of contemporary fiction. In this wide-ranging survey, Thomas Pavel argues that the driving force behind the novel's evolution has been a rivalry between stories that idealize human behavior and those that ridicule and condemn it. Impelled by this conflict, the novel moved from depicting strong souls to sensitive hearts and, finally, to enigmatic psyches. Pavel analyzes more than a hundred novels from Europe, North and South America, Asia, and beyond, resulting in a provocative reinterpretation of its development. According to Pavel, the earliest novels were implausible because their characters were either perfect or villainous. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, novelists strove for greater credibility by describing the inner lives of ideal characters in minute detail (as in Samuel Richardson's case), or by closely examining the historical and social environment (as Walter Scott and Balzac did). Yet the earlier rivalry continued: Henry Fielding held the line against idealism, defending the comic tradition with its flawed characters, while Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot offered a rejoinder to social realism with their idealized vision of strong, generous, and sensitive women. In the twentieth century, modernists like Proust and Joyce sought to move beyond this conflict and capture the enigmatic workings of the psyche. Pavel concludes his compelling account by showing how the old tensions persist even within today's pluralism, as popular novels about heroes coexist with a wealth of other kinds of works, from satire to social and psychological realism.

The Lives of the Novel Reviews

Winner of the 2015 Barbara Perkins and George Perkins Prize, The International Society for the Study of Narrative Winner of the 2013 PROSE Award in Literature, Association of American Publishers Shortlisted for the 2014 Christian Gauss Award, Phi Beta Kappa Society Pavel has written the most interesting and subtle one-volume history of the novel currently available.--James Wood, New Yorker I learned more from the fruits of [the] erudition and study in The Lives of the Novel than I can express.--Paul Kottman, Los Angeles Review of Books [D]eft, incisive... Thomas Pavel is a superb guide to the range and enduring power of the realist mode.--Thomas Keymer, Times Literary Supplement Pavel's study raises questions that can enrich readings of a wide range of fiction: What does it mean to live a virtuous life? How can humans achieve justice? What is an individual's responsibility to the community? To what extent is self-knowledge possible? These enduring questions infuse this erudite, elegantly written history with passion and urgency.--Kirkus Reviews The Lives of the Novel, first published in French as La Pensee du Roman, is a superb work that deserves to be very widely read by academics, students and anyone interested in the novel... [A]stounding and stimulating... [A] generous-hearted work... Intelligent, insightful and astonishingly well-informed, The Lives of the Novel is a major intervention and I imagine that it will become the standard work in this field, and remain so for years to come. Best of all, it was a pleasure to review because Pavel's love of literature just beams out of each page: reading this book is like the joy of meeting a stranger in a crowd at a pop festival and enthusing together about bands you both love.--Robert Eaglestone, Times Higher Education Thomas G. Pavel unravels what a novel is in his thoroughly researched The Lives of the Novel: A History. This academic work is fascinating as it delves into the intricacies of the novel and its importance... If you have ever wanted to know how the novel came to be what it is, Pavel is certainly an able guide.--Elizabeth Humphrey, San Francisco Book Review Pavel's stunning breadth of reading, combined with reasonable exposition, provides an ample window on one fascinating feature of the tangled bank origins and equally messy performance of the ever-evolving genre we call the novel.--William J. Scheick, English Literature in Transition [A]n immense journey of erudition that reads with the ease of fiction.--Nicolas Weill, Le Monde [An] eloquent and generous book.--Scott Black, Eighteenth Century Life

About Thomas G. Pavel

Thomas G. Pavel is Gordon J. Laing Distinguished Service Professor of French, Comparative Literature, and Social Thought at the University of Chicago. His books include Fictional Worlds and The Spell of Language.

Table of Contents

Preface ix Introduction 1 Part One The Highest Ideals 21 Chapter 1 Strong Souls, Degrees of Perfection 23 The Ancient Greek Novel 23 Chivalric Novels 35 Chapter 2 Helpless Souls, Tricksters, and Rascals 51 Interlude The Ideographic Method 72 Chapter 3 The Center of Action: Elegiac Stories and Novellas 74 Chapter 4 An Isolated Realm, Hesitant Lovers: The Pastoral 91 Chapter 5 Don Quixote and the History of the Novel 107 Part Two The Enchantment of Interiority 117 Chapter 6 The New Idealism 119 Chapter 7 Resistance to New Idealism 135 Play and Laughter 135 Sublime Terror 147 Chapter 8 Love: Romantic and Impossible 152 Part Three The Roots of Greatness 167 Chapter 9 Novels and Society 169 Chapter 10 From Sensitive Hearts to Enigmatic Psyches 199 Chapter 11 Syntheses, High Points 226 Part Four The Art of Detachment 263 Chapter 12 Loners in a Strange World 265 Envoi 297 Reading List 301 Debts 313 Index 319

Additional information

GOR008136755
9780691121895
0691121893
The Lives of the Novel: A History by Thomas G. Pavel
Used - Very Good
Hardback
Princeton University Press
20130923
360
Winner of Barbara Perkins and George Perkins Prize 2015 Winner of PROSE Awards: Literature 2013 Short-listed for Phi Beta Kappa's Christian Gauss Award 2014
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - The Lives of the Novel