Free Indirect - The Novel in a Postfictional Age

This book develops a new theory of the novel for the twenty-first century. In the works of writers such as J. M. Coetzee, Rachel Cusk, James Kelman, W. G. Sebald, and Zadie Smith, Timothy Bewes identifies a mode of thought that he calls ¿free indirect,¿ in which the novel¿s refusal of prevailing ideologies can be found.

List of contents

Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction. Unthinking Connections
Part I. The Novel Form and Its Limits
1. The Problem of Form
2. Against Exemplarity: W. G. Sebald
Part II. The Emergence of Postfictional Aesthetics
3. The Instantiation Relation
4. The Postfictional Hypothesis
5. The Logic of Disconnection
Interlude. Fictional Discourse as Event: On Jesse Ball
Part III. The Free Indirect
6. How Does Immanence Show Itself?
7. What Is a Sensorimotor Break? Deleuze on Cinema
Interlude. Profiling
8. Rancière: Toward Nonregime Thinking
Conclusion. The Indeterminate Thought of the Free Indirect
Notes
Index

About the author

Timothy Bewes is professor of English at Brown University. His books include The Event of Postcolonial Shame (2011); Reification, or The Anxiety of Late Capitalism (2002); and Cynicism and Postmodernity (1997).

Summary

This book develops a new theory of the novel for the twenty-first century. In the works of writers such as J. M. Coetzee, Rachel Cusk, James Kelman, W. G. Sebald, and Zadie Smith, Timothy Bewes identifies a mode of thought that he calls “free indirect,” in which the novel’s refusal of prevailing ideologies can be found.

Product details

• Authors: Timothy Bewes, Bewes Timothy
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.07.2022
• EAN: 9780231191609
• ISBN: 978-0-231-19160-9
• No. of pages: 336
• Series: Literature Now
• Subjects: Guides > Self-help, everyday life > Family; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 21st Century, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary Criticism