Scandalous Fictions: The Twentieth-Century Novel in the Public Sphere [Hardcover]

This study re-examines the twentieth-century novel as a form shaped by its problematic, often scandalous relation to the public sphere. Discussing ten texts against the challenges of their milieus, it considers twentieth-century fiction as a tradition of transgression, perennially caught between license and licentiousness, erudition and sedition.Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction: The Twentieth-Century Novel in the Public Sphere; J.Morrison & S.Watkins The 'nameless shamelessness' of Ulysses : Libel and the Law of Literature; S.Latham 'The aristocracy of intellect': Inversion and Inheritance in Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness ; S.Watkins The Law and the Profits: The Case of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover ; F.Becket 'You Reckon Folks Really Act Like That?': Horror Films and the Work of Popular Culture in Richard Wright's Native Son ; J.Smethurst Scandalous for Being Scandalous: 'monstrous huge fuck[s]' and 'slambanging big sodomies' in Jack Kerouac's On the Road ; R.J. Ellis Chinua Achebe's A Man of the People : The Novel and the Public Sphere; J.Morrison 'Precious Gift/Piece of Shit': Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses and the Revenge of History; S.Sharma Toni Morrison's Beloved : The Scandal That Disturbed Domestic Tranquility; M.Mobley Helen Darville, The Hand that Signed the Paper : Who is 'Helen Demidenko'?; S.Vice J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace : Reading Race/Reading Scandal; K.Easton Index Afterword; J.Morrison & S.Watkins Index

'Scandalous Fictions is a deliberately unsettling yet highly readable collection of essays. It asks readers to reconsider what they think they know about ten much-discussed texts, chosen precisely because they have been much discussed. Between them, these books have been accused of blasphemy, obscenity, imposture, libel, licentiousness, sedition, and racism; yet, until now, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the ways in which such literary scandals are produced. This important bools