Spoiled Distinctions: Aesthetics and the Ordinary in French Modernism [Paperback]

Spoiled Distinctionsinvestigates crises of evaluation in twentieth-century France. Taking Marcel Proust as its central figure, the book theorizes the disorienting force of everyday aesthetic experience. In a series of surprising readings, Hannah Freed-Thall frees Proust from his reputation as the most refined of high modernists. The author ofIn Search of Lost Timeappears here as a journalist and newspaper enthusiast, a literary ventriloquist and connoisseur of popular scandals, and a writer attentive to the unsophisticated phenomenology of the here and now.

The final chapters of the book consider the legacy of Proust's experiments with inestimable worth. Authors Francis Ponge, Nathalie Sarraute, and Yasmina Reza also explore the underside of cultural distinction. With Proust, they elaborate modernist variations on the beautiful and sublime--from nuance to the whatever and from the awkward to the sickly-sweet.Spoiled Distinctionsthus revitalizes the critical discourse on aesthetics. Mapping the intersection of phenomenology, aesthetic theory, and the sociology of culture, the book reveals how enchanting the ordinary can be.

Introduction

Part One: Aesthetic Disorientation in Proust
1. Prestige
2. Babble
3. Nuance

Part Two: Mid-Century Experiments
4. Profanation in Ponge
5. Sarraute's Bad Taste
6. Afterword

Notes
References

Spoiled Distinctionsis a sparkling work of criticism that illuminates the intriguing constellation of Proust, Sarraute, Ponge and Reza, drawing our attention to the role of the ordinary, the botched and the inarticulate in the work of these writers. Freed-Thall writes crisply, demonstrating an eye for nuance and detail of the very sort that characterizes the writers she so revealingly explores. --Adam Watt, author ofMarcel Proust