Reading John Banville through Jean Baudrillard
By: Hedda Friberg-Harnesk
Series: Cambria contemporary literature, film, and theory series
Publisher: Cambria Press
Published: 2018
Place of publication: Amherst, New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 222
ISBN-13: 9781604979534
Subjects: Criticism and interpretation; Influence; Resemblance (Philosophy) in literature; Reality in literature; Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)
Description: "This book aims to trace manifestations of Baudrillardean thinking in the contemporary fiction (seven novels and two plays) by John Banville, written in the period 1997 to 2015. Questions addressed concern the kinds of elements, attributable to what Jean Baudrillard terms the 'symbolic' order and the orders of simulacra--and notably, the latter are sometimes referred to as 'orders of simulation' and they are variously considered to be three, or four--might be discernible in these works and what insights, especially with regard to the self and relationships to 'the real', might be gleaned from these. Baudrillardean ideas such as the notion the hologram, the concept of 'life-in-death,' and--as in chapter 6--changing perceptions of demarcation lines between what is human and what is not, are also at focus, as are phenomena that, according to Baudrillard's thinking, move outside a realm of simulacra. The various chapters in this book--variations, as it were, on certain Baudrillardean themes--are linked through such issues"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Masks, memory, simulation : the untouchable and the sea; title: The "problem of the actor" : eclipse, shroud, and ancient light; title: The sorcererʹs assistant : Cass Cleaveʹs transfigured selves in Eclipse and shroud; title: Cancellation by the double : the Amphitryon myth and threats to the self in Godʹs gift; title: High stakes in the symbolic order : love in the wars; title: An "evaporation ... into the inhuman" : the infinities; title: "Plausible in every detail" : the simulated world of The infinities; title: "Consigned to an infinite replay" : the blue guitar; title: Coda : "there is no end, then; no conclusion".