Losing the Plot

Name: Losing the Plot
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SKU: 9780226829258
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Film and Feeling in the Modern Novel

By Pardis Dabashi

Summary

Losing the Plot explores the intricate relationship between literature and classical Hollywood cinema, uncovering a deep-seated longing for plot within modernist fiction. Despite modernist authors' efforts to break free from the Victorian "tyranny" of traditional plot structures, their work remained influenced by the narrative techniques and resolutions of classical films. Through the novels of Nella Larsen, Djuna Barnes, and William Faulkner, Pardis Dabashi examines how these writers' cinematic experiences shaped the tensions between their novels' forms and characters, highlighting the enduring, if conflicted, allure of plot and resolution.
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Format: Paperback / softback

$56⁹⁹

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Losing the Plot

$56⁹⁹

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book is ideal for readers interested in modernist literature, film studies, and the cross-influences between cinematic narratives and literary form. Scholars and students of twentieth-century fiction and classical Hollywood cinema will find it particularly illuminating.

Description

An examination of the relationship between literature and classical Hollywood cinema, revealing a profound longing for plot in modernist fiction.

It is widely understood that the modernist novel sought to escape what Virginia Woolf called the “tyranny” of plot. Yet even as twentieth-century writers pushed against the constraints of Victorian, plot-driven novels, plot kept its hold on them through the influence of another medium: the cinema.

Focusing on the novels of Nella Larsen, Djuna Barnes, and William Faulkner—writers known for their affinities and connections to classical Hollywood—Pardis Dabashi links the moviegoing practices of these writers to the tensions between the formal properties of their novels and the characters in them. Even when they did not feature outright happy endings, classical Hollywood films often provided satisfying formal resolutions and promoted normative social and political values.

Watching these films, modernist authors were reminded of what they were leaving behind—both formally and in the name of aesthetic experimentalism—by losing the plot.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

"An erudite, elegant, and insightful exploration of modernism’s ambivalent relationship to plot," says Dora Zhang of the University of California, Berkeley. Daniel Morgan of the University of Chicago praises the book as "an extremely ambitious work that fundamentally revises our understanding of modernist aesthetics by recasting plot as a modernist fantasy and showing cinema as its model." Their commendations emphasise Dabashi’s original and thought-provoking analysis of cinema’s impact on literary modernism.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780226829258

Publisher: The University of Chicago Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 06 November 2023

Country: United States

Imprint: University of Chicago Press

Illustration: 47 halftones

Audience: Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 25.0mm

Width: 152.0mm

Height: 229.0mm

Weight: 426g

Pages: 304

Collections

Education & Reference Non-Fiction Pardis Dabashi

About the Author

Pardis Dabashi is assistant professor in the Department of Literatures in English at Bryn Mawr College and a faculty affiliate in the Film Studies Program and the Middle Eastern, Central Asian, and North African Studies Program. She is the coeditor of The New William Faulkner Studies, with Sarah Gleeson-White.