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The Trash Phenomenon looks at how writers of the late twentieth
century not only have integrated the events, artifacts, and
theories of popular culture into their works but also have used
those works as windows into popular culture's role in the process
of nation building. Taking her cue from Donald Barthelme's 1967
portrayal of popular culture as ""trash"" and Don DeLillo's 1997
description of it as a subversive ""people's history,"" Stacey
Olster explores how literature recycles American popular culture so
as to change the nationalistic imperative behind its inception. The
Trash Phenomenon begins with a look at the mass media's role in the
United States' emergence as the twentieth century's dominant power.
Olster discusses the works of three authors who collectively span
the century bounded by the Spanish-American War (1898) and the
Persian Gulf War (1991): Gore Vidal's American Chronicle series,
John Updike's Rabbit tetralogy, and Larry Beinhart's American Hero.
Olster then turns her attention to three non-American writers whose
works explore the imperial sway of American popular culture on
their nation's value systems: hierarchical class structure in
Dennis Potter's England, Peronism in Manuel Puig's Argentina, and
Nihonjinron consensus in Haruki Murakami's Japan. Finally, Olster
returns to American literature to look at the contemporary media
spectacle and the representative figure as potential sources of
national consolidation after November 1963. Olster first focuses on
autobiographical, historical, and fictional accounts of three
spectacles in which the formulae of popular culture are shown to
bypass differences of class, gender, and race: the John F. Kennedy
assassination, the Scarsdale Diet Doctor murder, and the O. J.
Simpson trial. She concludes with some thoughts about the nature of
American consolidation after 9/11.
A wide-ranging study of the post-1990 fiction of one of America's
most respected writers and cultural critics, this volume focuses on
three of Don DeLillo's most recent novelsGCoMao II, Underworld, and
Falling ManGCothat span pivotal moments in recent history: the end
of the Cold War, the millennium, and 9/11. Consisting of original
essays written by scholars whose interdisciplinary
approachesGCodrawn from art history and religious history, ethnic
studies and urban studies, popular culture and political
scienceGCoshed new light on DeLillo's work, it investigates
DeLillo's portrait of turn-of-the-century America as the nation
confronts the defining phenomena of globalism and terrorism. With
an eye always on the impact that shifts in historical sensibility
produce on aesthetic sensibility, the volume also considers the
role that DeLillo sees narrative playing in a world dominated by
digital images and provides the first extended analysis of how much
faith he has in fiction's ability to convey the trauma of September
11, an event commonly conceived as resistant to all forms of
artistic expression.
Post-modernist fiction apparently presents a world of chance and
randomness, devoid of historical intelligibility. Focusing on
American post-modernist writers, Stacey Olster offers a challenge
to this perception, showing how the experience of political and
historical events has shaped the novelist's perspective. Communism
after World War II proved particularly instrumental in this
capacity; the failure of the Communist ideal in Russia forced a
change in the literary perspective of history during the 1950s.
Olster analyzes in detail historical narrative configurations in
the works of a pivotal group of writers. Norman Mailer, Thomas
Pynchon, John Barth, Robert Coover and E. L. Doctorow share a
common vision of historical movement in the shape of an open-ended
spiral. The modes of temporal movement constructed by these authors
manage to recall an early Puritan prototype while remaining
nonapocalyptic in direction.
The Cambridge Introduction to Contemporary American Fiction
explores fiction written over the last thirty years in the context
of the profound political, historical, and cultural changes that
have distinguished the contemporary period. Focusing on both
established and emerging writers - and with chapters devoted to the
American historical novel, regional realism, the American political
novel, the end of the Cold War and globalization, 9/11, borderlands
and border identities, race, and the legacy of postmodern
aesthetics - this Introduction locates contemporary American
fiction at the intersection of a specific time and long-standing
traditions. In the process, it investigates the entire concept of
what constitutes an "American" author while exploring the vexed,
yet resilient, nature of what the concept of home has come to
signify in so much writing today. This wide-ranging study will be
invaluable to students, instructors, and general readers alike.
John Updike is one of the most prolific and important American
authors of the contemporary period, with an acclaimed body of work
that spans half a century and is inspired by everything from
American exceptionalism to American popular culture. This Companion
joins together a distinguished international team of contributors
to address both the major themes in Updike's writing as well as the
sources of controversy that Updike's writing has often provoked. It
traces the ways in which historical and cultural changes in the
second half of the twentieth century have shaped not just Updike's
reassessment of America's heritage, but his reassessment of the
literary devices by which that legacy is best portrayed. With a
chronology and bibliography of Updike's published writings, this is
the only guide students and scholars of Updike will need to
understand this extraordinary writer.
This is a collection of original, stimulating interpretations of
key texts by Don DeLillo, designed for students and edited and
written by leading scholars in the field. Offering a comprehensive
and up-to-date analysis of the post-1990 fiction of one of
America's most respected writers and cultural critics, this volume
focuses on three of Don DeLillo's most recent novels - "Mao II",
"Underworld", and "Falling Man" - that span pivotal moments in
recent history: the end of the Cold War, the millennium, and 9/11.
Bringing together original essays by scholars working in art
history, urban studies, economic theory, ethnic studies alongside
contemporary literature and American studies approaches,
investigates DeLillo's portrait of turn-of-the-century America as
it confronts globalism and terrorism. With an eye always on the
impact that shifts in historical sensibility produce on aesthetic
sensibility, the volume considers the role that DeLillo sees
narrative playing in a world defined by digital images and provides
the first extended analysis of how much faith he has in fiction's
ability to convey the trauma of September 11, an event commonly
conceived as resistant to all forms of artistic expression. This
series offers up-to-date guides to the recent work of major
contemporary North American authors. Written by leading scholars in
the field, each book presents a range of original interpretations
of three key texts published since 1990, showing how the same novel
may be interpreted in a number of different ways. These
informative, accessible volumes will appeal to advance
undergraduate and postgraduate students, facilitating discussion
and supporting close analysis of the most important contemporary
American and Canadian fiction.
The Trash Phenomenon looks at how writers of the late twentieth
century not only have integrated the events, artifacts, and
theories of popular culture into their works but also have used
those works as windows into popular culture's role in the process
of nation building. Taking her cue from Donald Barthelme's 1967
portrayal of popular culture in Snow White as ""trash,"" and Don
DeLillo's 1997 description of it as a subversive ""people's
history"" in Underworld, Stacey Olster explores the ways in which
American popular culture can be recycled in literature so as to
change the nationalistic imperative behind its inception. The Trash
Phenomenon begins with a look at the mass media's role in the
United States' emergence as the twentieth century's dominant power.
To this end, Olster discusses the works of three authors that
collectively span the century bounded by the Spanish-American War
(1898) and the Persian Gulf War (1991): Gore Vidal's ""American
Chronicle"" series, John Updike's Rabbit tetralogy, and Larry
Beinhart's American Hero. Olster then turns her attention to three
non-American writers whose own cultures have felt the imperial sway
of American popular culture: hierarchical class structure in Dennis
Potter's England, Peronism in Manuel Puig's Argentina, and
Nihonjinron consensus in Haruki Murakami's Japan. Finally, Olster
returns to American literature to look at the contemporary media
spectacle and the representative figure as potential sources of
national consolidation after November 1963. Olster first focuses on
autobiographical, historical, and fictional accounts of three
spectacles in which the formulae of popular culture are shown to
bypass differences of class, gender, and race: the John F. Kennedy
assassination, the Scarsdale Diet Doctor murder, and the O. J.
Simpson trial. She concludes with some thoughts about the nature of
American consolidation after 9/11. The Trash Phenomenon is filled
with fresh and challenging insights into how and why American
popular culture can be recycled in literature so as to change the
nationalistic imperative behind its inception.
The Cambridge Introduction to Contemporary American Fiction
explores fiction written over the last thirty years in the context
of the profound political, historical, and cultural changes that
have distinguished the contemporary period. Focusing on both
established and emerging writers - and with chapters devoted to the
American historical novel, regional realism, the American political
novel, the end of the Cold War and globalization, 9/11, borderlands
and border identities, race, and the legacy of postmodern
aesthetics - this Introduction locates contemporary American
fiction at the intersection of a specific time and long-standing
traditions. In the process, it investigates the entire concept of
what constitutes an "American" author while exploring the vexed,
yet resilient, nature of what the concept of home has come to
signify in so much writing today. This wide-ranging study will be
invaluable to students, instructors, and general readers alike.
The world reflected in post-modernist fiction is one of chance and
randomness, devoid of historical intelligibility. Stacey Olster
challenges this view by distinguishing American
post-modernism--with respect to the views of historical processes
that its practitioners share. Arguing that their experience of
communism proved instrumental in shaping the historical perspective
of novelists who began writing after World War II, Olster examines
their change in perspective in the 1950s after historical events
forced them to acknowledge the failure of the communist ideal in
Russia. Focusing on Norman Mailer, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth,
Robert Coover, and E.L. Doctorow, Olster portrays the
idiosyncratic--but consistent--model of history that each began to
construct in his work in order to preserve the illusion of an
ordered sense of time. The author defines the qualities the writers
share that form a common sensibility: a vision of historical
movement taking the shape of an open-ended spiral, a refusal to
accept the inevitability of apocalypse, and a conscious return to
the traditions of earlier American authors.
John Updike is one of the most prolific and important American
authors of the contemporary period, with an acclaimed body of work
that spans half a century and is inspired by everything from
American exceptionalism to American popular culture. This Companion
joins together a distinguished international team of contributors
to address both the major themes in Updike's writing as well as the
sources of controversy that Updike's writing has often provoked. It
traces the ways in which historical and cultural changes in the
second half of the twentieth century have shaped not just Updike's
reassessment of America's heritage, but his reassessment of the
literary devices by which that legacy is best portrayed. With a
chronology and bibliography of Updike's published writings, this is
the only guide students and scholars of Updike will need to
understand this extraordinary writer.
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