The scholarly response to John Irving's novels has impinged upon a wide range of contemporary subjects of interest, from postmodernism and ethics to gender studies, the family, and historical criticism. This volume draws on a series of contemporaneous reviews and scholarly essays to provide the reader with an in-depth look at Irving's work.
This book devotes particular attention to the critical reception of Irving's ten novels from Setting Free the Bears through The Fourth Hand. The work is divided into eleven sections that address each of Irving's novels and the publication of his memoirs. Each section is accompanied by book reviews that reveal the nature of the novels' critical reception, as well as by scholarly essays that provide readers with an exemplary interpretation of each of Irving's works. Fully indexed, The Critical Response to John Irving includes an expansive introduction, a biographical chronology, and a bibliography for further reading.

The Critical Response to John Irving (Critical Responses in Arts and Letters)

Literature & Fiction

Womack, Kenneth

Davis, Todd F.

History & Criticism

Praeger

Explores the moral and philosophical underpinnings of Vonnegut’s work. “I’ve worried some about why write books when presidents and senators and generals do not read them, and the university experience taught me a very good reason: you catch people before they become generals and senators and presidents, and you poison their minds with humanity. Encourage them to make a better world.” ― Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut’s desire to save the planet from environmental and military destruction, to enact change by telling stories that both critique and embrace humanity, sets him apart from many of the postmodern authors who rose to prominence during the 1960s and 1970s. This new look at Vonnegut’s oeuvre examines his insistence that writing is an “act of good citizenship or an attempt, at any rate, to be a good citizen.” By exploring the moral and philosophical underpinnings of Vonnegut’s work, Todd F. Davis demonstrates that, over the course of his long career, Vonnegut has created a new kind of humanism that not only bridges the modern and postmodern, but also offers hope for the power and possibilities of story. Davis highlights the ways Vonnegut deconstructs and demystifies the “grand narratives” of American culture while offering provisional narratives―petites histoires―that may serve as tools for daily living.

Kurt Vonnegut's Crusade Or, How a Postmodern Harlequin Preached a New Kind of Humanism (S U N Y Series in Postmodern Culture) (Suny Postmodern Culture)

State Univ of New York Pr

Explores the moral and philosophical underpinnings of Vonnegut’s work.

Kurt Vonnegut's Crusade; or, How a Postmodern Harlequin Preached a New Kind of Humanism (S U N Y Series in Postmodern Culture)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Davis, Todd F.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Davis, Todd F.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Davis, Todd F.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Critical Response to John Irving (Critical Responses in Arts and Letters)

Kurt Vonnegut's Crusade Or, How a Postmodern Harlequin Preached a New Kind of Humanism (S U N Y Series in Postmodern Culture) (Suny Postmodern Culture)

Kurt Vonnegut's Crusade; or, How a Postmodern Harlequin Preached a New Kind of Humanism (S U N Y Series in Postmodern Culture)