The power of the story
Subtitle: fiction and political change
By: Michael Hanne.
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Providence, R.I
Language: eng
Number of pages: 262
Subjects: Fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism.; Fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; Political fiction -- History and criticism.
Description: Can a Novel Cause Riots, start a war, free serfs or slaves, break up marriages, drive readers to suicide, close factories, bring about legal change, swing an election, or serve as a weapon in a national or international struggle?

These are some of the larger, direct, social and political effects which have been ascribed to certain exceptional novels and other works of narrative fiction over the last two hundred years or so. In their crudest form, claims of this kind are obviously naive, oversimplifying the complex ways in which literary texts "work in the world" and oversimplifying, too, the causal processes required to account for a major social or political change.

But is it possible to modify or refine such claims in the light of contemporary theory and historical research so that the mechanisms by which each text has engaged with the political forces of the time are adequately described? The author explores this question in the form of a theoretical essay on narrative and power, followed by five detailed case studies of works by Turgenev, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ignazio Silone, Solzhenitsyn and Salman Rushdie each of which had or were said to have had a major impact on the political events in their time.

Forcefully argued and written with a minimum of jargon, this book will appeal to a wide readership well beyond that of the specialist in literature.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [245]-256) and index.
Table of contents: title: Narrative and power; title: Ivan Turgenev : A sportsman's notebook (1852); title: Harriet Beecher Stowe : Uncle Tom's cabin (1852); title: Ignazio Silone : Fontamara (1933); title: Alexander Solzhenitsyn : One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich (1962); title: Salman Rushdie : The satanic verses (1988).