The Antinomies of Realism

by Fredric Jameson

The Antinomies of Realism is a history ofthe nineteenth-century realist novel and its legacy told without a glimmer of nostalgia for artistic achievements that the movement of history makes it impossible to recreate. The works of Zola, Tolstoy, Pérez Galdós, and George Eliot are in the most profound sense inimitable, yet continue to dominate the novel form to this day. Novels to emerge since struggle to reconcile the social conditions of their own creation with the history of this mode of writing: the so-called modernist novel is one attempted solution to this conflict, as is the ever-more impoverished variety of commercial narratives—what today’s book reviewers dub “serious novels,” which are an attempt at the impossible endeavor to roll back the past. 

Fredric Jameson examines the most influential theories of artistic and literary realism, approaching the subject himself in terms of the social and historical preconditions for realism’s emergence. The realist novel combined an attention to the body and its states of feeling with a focus on the quest for individual realization within the confines of history. 

In contemporary writing, other forms of representation—for which the term “postmodern” is too glib—have become visible: for example, in the historical fiction of Hilary Mantel or the stylistic plurality of David Mitchell’s novels. Contemporary fiction is shown to be conducting startling experiments in the representation of new realities of a global social totality, modern technological warfare, and historical developments that, although they saturate every corner of our lives, only become apparent on rare occasions and by way of the strangest formal and artistic devices. 
In a coda, Jameson explains how “realistic” narratives survived the end of classical realism. In effect, he provides an argument for the serious study of popular fiction and mass culture that transcends lazy journalism and the easy platitudes of recent cultural studies.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Literary Criticism, Criticism, Literature, History

432 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Fredric Jameson was an American literary critic, philosopher and Marxist political theorist. He was best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends, particularly his analysis of postmodernity and capitalism. Jameson's best-known books include Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) and The Political Unconscious (1981).

Reviews

[Tom L · Rating 4 out of 5]

by turns frustrating and illuminating, bathetic and sublime. dialectical in the way that only jameson can be. his latest instalment in the poetics of social forms.

[Indrek Ojam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun fact: see on raamat, millele olen ilmselt kõige rohkem viidanud ja mida olen ettekannetes ja seminarides kõige rohkem inimestele (üle) seletanud (või seletada proovinud). Aga point hakkab alles nüüd tervikuna kohale jõudma. Noh, parem hilja kui mitte kunagi.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

So here it is: Realism. Realism is a subject Jameson constantly returns to throughout his work, and as an extended treatment this book is a lot of fun to read (well, at least for a nerd like me). And as is characteristic of everything Jameson does, he has approached the subject from a very unique perspective.

So why antinomies? Jameson starts this book by situating himself in his familiar Marxist position, leaning heavily on the Dialectic (of which he takes a very broad view: see a favorite of mine, Valences of the Dialectic). In this book he leans specifically on a dialectic he has conjured up for the occasion: it is a mouthful, but his dueling pair are recit and affect (or also, "destiny versus the eternal present.")

So recit, which is a genre and also one of those unfortunately non-translatable French words (though this one seems easier to approximate than others like it), Jameson roughly outlines by combining a word he thought generic enough for the job, "tale," with the phrase "eternal present," which is illustrated with a series of anecdotes in the first essay, such as a narrative that is told rather than shown (the opposite being the standard technique everybody knows which he attributes to Henry James).

And then affect, meaning something like atmosphere or perhaps the emotional tenor of a scene, which in some way precedes the protagonist, carrying or driving them on, like destiny. Affect, in other words, is a mood that "replaces the named emotions" with something that is more of a visceral or lived experience.

Jameson pursues this dialectic in the way he finds most productive: without seeking resolution. However, without resolution a dialectic runs the risk of reaching dissolution, and in the case of Realism the history bears this out. It goes without saying Realism dissolved in the acid baths of Modernism (which are clearly outlined here).

But also, starting off with this complicated dialectic is of course just a jumping off point for Jameson, and what he shows over the course of twelve essays is a singular period in the historical form of the novel, a stylistic marker along the path between its antecedents and descendants, suggesting an ultimately ephemeral nature as a transitional period between the Romantic and Modern eras (though, I think Raymond Williams proposed Realism as the original Modernist movement).

He touches on many interesting aspects (you would be surprised how far recit and particularly affect will take you), including a sharp defense of irony (in one of my two favorite essays in the book, Swollen Third Person, Or, Realism After Realism), and the rather iffy prospects for the historical novel (detailed in the other of my favorite essays in the book, The Historical Novel Today, Or, Is It Still Possible?)

In the end, I must say this book is a classic of its class, if I may put it that way.

[Humphrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compelling at points, desperately in need of an editor.

[Colin · Rating 2 out of 5]

pretty boring really

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a basic question about this book. Why are the antinomies necessary? Mightn't it be possible to think about realism without having to engage in Hegelian dialectical analysis?

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it, of course. Learned a lot about "Realism" and secondary scholarship on "Realism." Last chapter ends with analyses of _Inception_ and _Cloud Atlas_... if you're still riveted.

Chapters on Zola, Tolstoy, Pérez Galdós, and Eliot. I already loved Z and E, didn't care much for T, and hadn't heard of PG. Now I've changed my mind about T and might go pick up some PG.

[Chris Tempel]

learnéd, frustrating, narrowminded, covering a lot of novelistic ground, academic chic, one hell of a sunday at barnes and noble

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s very cute that this elegant, broad, accessible, if modest — nothing like the grandeur of The Political Unconscious, which the much more specific concept named by the title, and to which the book carefully and lovingly confines itself, already confirms — tour (less the ‘de force’) through the great nineteenth-century realist novels and their various structural relations to time and/as affect and/as body is happy to conclude itself with a brief and enthusiastic discussion of Christopher Nolan’s Inception and David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. I suspect that modesty dates quicker than grandeur!

[Alexander Pechacek · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a moment imagine a mind who crystallizes the thought of literary criticism as well as Jameson and you will soon find you are flipping through the pages of someone who has the power to herald the novel as a great work of art. I read books as a reading companion to his chapters. So, reading Leo Tolstoy, Emile Zola, George Eliot, and Benito Perez Galdos was where I found myself understanding each point this writer had to write about realism and age old novels. I especially enjoyed reading the last chapter The Historical Novel Today, or, Is It Still Possible where he capitalized on the novel Cloud Atlas, which I hope to read in the near future. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to voice my short review here.

[May Jeong]

ok, so this book is not for everyone, but the chapter on the eight different conceits in war stories is just terrific. the eight are: 1) the existential experience of war; 2.) the collective experience of war; 3.) leaders, officers, and the institution of the army itself; 4.) technology; 5.) the enemy landscape; 6.) atrocities; 7.) attack on the homeland; 8.) foreign occupation.

[Sergio Valverde · Rating 1 out of 5]

This guy needs an editor. Pretentious, unbearable style. He may have interesting things to say re literary realism but he writes deplorably

[Sergio Corchete · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uno, que ha llegado al realismo más por la crítica literaria que por las novelas, se pierde a veces en el océano de referencias que maneja Jameson. Pero es un librazo, un repaso generoso y muy ambicioso por las formaciones literarias y las posibilidades históricamente disponibles en que ha ido mutando el impulso que albergaba la forma realista. Explora esas posibilidades, que a veces es muy difícil sistematizar sin caer en un aparato de ejemplos tomados de manera más o menos arbitraria, utilizando el canon para terminar en el cliché, y defendiendo una posición realmente arriesgada sobre la posibilidad única de la supervivencia de la novela histórica en algo así como la ciencia ficción. El capítulo sobre Galdós es increíble, las discusiones sobre Lukács son más indirectas (a través de cómo se va manejando e historizando la posibilidad del impulso realista), pero la incursión más directa que hace en el último capítulo también es impresionante.
En fin, que es un mapa actualizado y verdaderamente necesario para hacerse cargo hoy de las posibilidades de la representación en un sentido histórico, tanto como político y literario, que es un problema absolutamente central con el que estoy cada vez más obsesionado en mi tesis. Y también es complicado de cojones (no quiero leer a Kant).

[Humphrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jameson makes a number of good claims here, but I can't help think most of them aren't that new. It seems that one major issue, though, is the exclusion of American realism (and the scholarship about it). This isn't to simply pooh-pooh a project for not being broader, which one can of course always do: American realism messes with expected recits in interesting ways that I think complicate Jameson's account.

[Tauan Tinti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fiquei surpreso com o quanto gostei, especialmente da primeira parte - e isso a despeito de eu não ter nenhuma simpatia especial pelo conceito de "afeto", aqui refuncionalizado e quase sempre em primeiro plano na sua relação (antinômica?) com o récit. A segunda, que achei mais "convencional" (no sentido que o termo se aplica ao Jameson, com toda a pirotecnia conceitual de sempre), não deixa de ter seus achados - mas terminei o livro um pouco aliviado com ele ter acabado.

[Pe · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[sezen]

Doktora usulü, lazım chapterları okudum bir tek ama yine kitabın yarısı ediyordur.

[David Carrasco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly well researched and written, this is really a good piece of scholarly work..

[Kristin Canfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted more from this book than it was willing to give. That said, I now understand why so many people have recommended Jameson to me given my interest in the late 19th century, narrative theory, and genre. If you are interested in any of those things, this (or one of Jameson's many other books) might serve you well.

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a brief and interesting study. Most of it is one long monograph, followed by three extended book reviews that illustrate some of the points. Some of the conclusions Jameson comes to are beyond my competence and comprehension, but I really enjoyed his exploration and evaluation of novels of Balzac, Flaubert, Dickens, and David Mitchell.

[Mills College Library]

809.3912 J31 2015