Machine generated contents note: -- Acknowledgements -- Preface -- List of Abbreviations -- 1. Introduction: A formal and ideological approach to Jonathan Franzen's fiction -- 2. Knowable conspiracies: The Twenty-Seventh City -- 3. Strong Motion: Activism of the private sphere -- 4. The Corrections: A family romance for the global age -- 5. How to close a (meta)narrative: Freedom -- 6. Recapitulation: What's in an ending? -- 7. Epilogue: Purity and Hope -- Works Cited.
Summary:
" Despite the success and significance of Jonathan Franzen's fiction, his work has received little scholarly attention. Aiming to fill this conspicuous gap, Jonathan Franzen and the Romance of Community analyses each of Franzen's five novels in chronological order to reveal an interior logic animating his work. Jesus Blanco Hidalga integrates often separated formal and ideological perspectives to illuminate Franzen's stylistic and narrative choices, and in so doing, he discovers the concepts, typical of romance narratives, of salvation and redemption running throughout Franzen's fiction. Hidalga shows how these salvation narratives are used for self-legitimization -- not only by the characters, but by the writer himself. The author further re-assesses Franzen's use of realism and explores each novel within its cultural and political context. Combining critical rigor with interpretative boldness, Hidalga offers a solid theoretical approach to a major contemporary author. "-- Provided by publisher. "Working within theoretical and critical contexts, Hidalga applies a model of the conversion/redemption narrative to the novels of Jonathan Franzen"-- Provided by publisher.
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