Paradoxical Resolutions: American Fiction since James Joyce

by Craig Werner

Genres: Criticism

240 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1982

Reviews

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Very simple. Werner's thesis is that Joyce's major accomplishment is a synthesis, rather, to go with Homer, a navigation between the Charybdis and Scylla of the romantic-symbolic and the naturalistic-realistic novelistic modes. To pass through or combine or balance the solutions offered as either the total freeing/alienation of character from society or the total victimization by society of the character. A middle ground. Both/and. An alternative to the either/or.

What could possibly be done after everything that Finnegans Wake had done? How to write after=Joyce? Turns out, Joyce wasn't he end of novelistic possibilities, but the opening up of new avenues of addressing novelistic concerns. Of approaching the relation of the transcendent and the mundane. The meaningful and the trivial. The flight toward freedom and the pull of the mire.

Authors/novels treated are indicated in my updates. An older study (1982) well worth recommending for all of those interested in questions about the history of The Novel and especially as it has played out in the literary culture of the Usofa.