Textcountertext: Postmodern Paranoia In Samuel Beckett, Doris Lessing, And Philip Roth

by Marie A. Danziger

Text/ Postmodern Paranoia in Samuel Beckett, Doris Lessing, and Philip Roth analyzes the psychological and structural dynamic of three postmodern Samuel Beckett's Malone Dies . Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook , and Philip Roth's The Counterlife . Storytelling becomes here the dangerous activity of a guilty outsider who has come to expect hostile disapproval from all quarters. The result is a sadomasochistic confrontation between these postmodern writers and their imagined the pleasure of storytelling is linked to the pain the authors inflict upon their readers in retaliation for their anticipated disapproval. The structural consequence is «serial negation» - the constant agonistic oscillation between text and countertext, reflecting the authors' determined efforts to sidestep criticism and maintain artistic control.

120 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1996