History, Myth and Ritual in the Fiction of John Mcgahern: Strategies of Transcendence
| Author: | Whyte, James | |
| Year: | 2002 | |
| Pages: | 296 | |
| ISBN: | 0-7734-7018-2 978-0-7734-7018-7 | |
| Price: | $199.95 + shipping | |
| (Click the PayPal button to buy) | ||
For this study of the fiction of Irish writer McGahern, one of the prominent writers to follow the generation of James Joyce, White (Presentation College, UK) talked extensively with McGahern and studied all of his published novels and short stories. White finds a variety of themes in McGahern's work, including a sense of social fragmentation, the role of ritual in sustaining the hope of transformation, and the hierarchical structure of the family. Running throughout McGahern's work is the hope for a possibility of transcendence to an ideal world.
Table of Contents
Table of contents (main headings):
Foreword; Introduction
1. The Social Context: Between Two Worlds
2. The Struggle for Form: McGahern’s Aesthetic
3. Religion and Ritual: Instinct and the Formal Pattern
5. The Family and Symbolic Stories
Conclusion
Appendix: Interview with John McGahern
Bibliography; Index
Foreword; Introduction
1. The Social Context: Between Two Worlds
2. The Struggle for Form: McGahern’s Aesthetic
3. Religion and Ritual: Instinct and the Formal Pattern
5. The Family and Symbolic Stories
Conclusion
Appendix: Interview with John McGahern
Bibliography; Index