Parkes, Adam
MWF 3 :00 PM
Park Hall 136
This course offers an introduction to some of the most beautiful and intriguing works of fiction written by contemporary British writers. Reading works written in the realist tradition together with experimental texts, our primary goal will be to explore ways in which novels and stories written in the twenty-first century engage with history -- the history of the present, as well as the past. We will consider how far themes of class, money, status, family, and marriage continue to shape the English novel as a literary form, as well as discussing the aesthetic consequences of issues that loom large in the contemporary world, such as global finance, immigration, multiculturalism, national and international identities, the digital revolution, and climate change. We will also think about how fiction strives to reshape these materials and sometimes to resist them. Another recurrent theme will be the twenty-first-century response to the artistic and cultural legacies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Secondary readings will be introduced at various junctures.
The following works are likely to appear on the syllabus: Pat Barker, Border Crossing; Tessa Hadley, Bad Dreams and Other Stories; Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go; Tom McCarthy, Remainder; Ian McEwan, Atonement; Zadie Smith, On Beauty; Lucy Wood, The Sing of the Shore.
Reading ahead during the winter break is strongly recommended. McEwan's Atonement will be the first book we read, so start there