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The German Novel and the Affluent Society

Wilfried van der Will author R Hinton Thomas author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of Toronto Press

Published:15th Dec '68

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The German Novel and the Affluent Society cover

This book comprises studies of six leading West German novelists, Gerd Gaiser, Wolfgang Koeppen, Heinrich Boll, Gunter Grass, Martin Walser and Uwe Johnson. The analysis of their work involves preoccupation with the social reality underlying their themes and attitudes, with the tension between the writer and society, with the writer as intellectual, and with the problem of commitment. Form and language are closely examined, often in connection with the predominant problem of identity and role-playing. These studies involve cross-references to other writers in and outside Germany, and serve also as the basis for the discussion of such matters as the writer’s position in the pluralistic society and his relation to the mass-media, ideology and authority.

‘A valuable and stimulating survey of the more important tendencies in the German novel as a whole.’

– The Listener

‘Mr Pascal has an imaginative intelligence which is rare in criticism, and one does not know whether to admire most the nicety of his detail or his grasp of the whole.’

– New Statesman

‘A sensitive and critical account of eight German novelists, beginning with Goethe and ending with Kafka and Thomas Mann…there is little writing on German literature up to the critical standard.’

– Cambridge Review

ISBN: 9781487585020

Dimensions: 216mm x 140mm x 25mm

Weight: 1g

188 pages