Randall Stevenson

Well written and comprehensive, I'd recommend this to most people. Stevenson's obviously committed to all the lit department pieties about 'difference' and 'experiment' and naval gazing as a form of radical politics, but to his enormous credit that doesn't turn this book into a hot mess. His analysis of the ways that immigrant communities have hooked in nicely to postmodern literary methods was fascinating, although brief, and terrifying considering that this is meant to be an argument which supports both immigrant/post-colonial writing - a lot of which is fabulous enough not to need such dubious support - *and* said postmodern methods, which clearly need to be criticized far more severely than Stevenson seems willing to admit. Anyway, it's slow going to start with, but persist or just skip to the sections on poetry, drama and narrative, which are really great.… (more)

Great introduction to some of the giants of British modernism. Stevenson focuses on the big three, Lawrence, Woolf and Joyce; but also spends a lot of time on the big two precursors, James and Conrad. There's not much here on the yanks, although Hemingway gets the occasional look in, as does Faulkner. There's also a lot on Proust. Basically, this book is a boiled down version of Genette's 'Narrative Discourse;' Jameson's 'Political Unconscious;' and Bakhtin, with some of James's and Woolf's essays thrown in for good measure. That's good stuff. I think there's a new edition with an extra chapter on books written by, y'know, people who aren't pasty white. Probably worth tracking down.… (more)