Rayner Heppenstall
Subtitle: A Critical Study
Edition: First edition
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
Published: July 1, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 110
ISBN-13: 9781564784711
Subjects: Literary studies: from c 1900 -; Novels, other prose & writers: from c 1900 -; Heppenstall, Rayner - Prose & Criticism; Literary Criticism; Fiction - General; English; British Isles; General; Nonfiction; English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; 1911-; Criticism and interpretation; Heppenstall, Rayner,
Description: "This book examines the first five novels of Rayner Heppenstall (1911-1981). During his lifetime, many critics cited Heppenstall as the founder of the nouveau roman, believing his debut novel, The Blaze of Noon (1939), anticipated the post-war innovations of French writers such as Alain Robbe-Grillet and Nathalie Sarraute. Since his death, however, Heppenstall's reputation has faded, and his fiction is out of print. His final novels, written during a descent into madness, were structurally simplistic and politically unpalatable, and their disastrous critical reception clouded critical judgment of his previous novels. G.J. Buckell examines the importance of technical experimentation, rather than the ideological content, within Heppenstall's earlier works, and seeks a more favorable standing for Heppenstall within our critical and cultural memory."--Jacket.