Jesse Matz examines the writing of such modernists as Henry James, Joseph Conrad and Virginia Woolf, who used the word 'impression' to describe what they wanted their fiction to present. Matz redefines literary Impressionism, focusing on the way that impressions destroy standard perceptual distinctions between thinking and sensing, believing and suspecting. He argues that these writers favoured not immediate subjective sense, but rather a mode that would mediate perceptual distinctions. Just as impressions fall somewhere between thought and sense, Impressionist fiction occupies the middle ground between opposite ways of engaging with the world. Matz also argues that the resulting confusion becomes a basic plot feature of modernist fiction. This wide-ranging 2001 study addresses the problems of perception and representation that occupied writers in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Matz examines the writing of such modernists as James, Conrad and Woolf, who used the word "impression" to describe what they wanted their fiction to present. Matz argues that these writers did not favor immediate subjective sense, but rather a mode that would mediate perceptual distinctions. Just as impressions fall somewhere between thought and sense, impressionist fiction occupies the middle ground between opposite ways of engaging with the world. This study addresses the problems of perception and representation that occupied writers in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Impressionism captured the world's imagination in the late nineteenth century and remains with us today. Portraying the dynamic effects of modernity, impressionist artists revolutionized the arts and the wider culture. Impressionism transformed the very pattern of reality, introducing new ways to look at and think about the world and our experience of it. Its legacy has been felt in many major contributions to popular and high culture, from cubism and early cinema to the works of Zadie Smith and W. G. Sebald, from advertisements for Pepsi to the observations of Oliver Sacks and Malcolm Gladwell. Yet impressionism's persistence has also been a problem, a matter of inauthenticity, superficiality, and complicity in what is merely "impressionistic" about culture today. Jesse Matz considers these two legacies-the positive and the negative-to explain impressionism's true contemporary significance. As Lasting Impressions moves through contemporary literature, painting, and popular culture, Matz explains how the perceptual role, cultural effects, and social implications of impressionism continue to generate meaning and foster new forms of creativity, understanding, and public engagement.

This book introduces readers to the history of the novel in the twentieth century and demonstrates its ongoing relevance as a literary form.
A jargon-free introduction to the whole history of the novel in the twentieth century.
Examines the main strands of twentieth-century fiction, including post-war, post-imperial and multicultural fiction, the global novel, the digital novel and the post-realist novel.
Offers students ideas about how to read the modern novel, how to enjoy its strange experiments, and how to assess its value, as well as suggesting ways to understand and appreciate the more difficult forms of modern fiction
Pays attention both to the practice of novel writing and to theoretical debates among novelists.
Claims that the novel is as purposeful and relevant today as it was a hundred years ago.
Serves as an excellent springboard for classroom discussions of the nature and purpose of modern fiction.