The Novel and Revolution [antikvár]

PrefaceThis book is an attempt to relate revolutionary movements, ideas and practices, or the threat of revolution, real or imagined, to the novel form. Given the great number of novels which in one way or another take revolution as their theme some selection has been inevitable. The choice of novels was ultimately narrowed down by the decision to focus exclusively on European revolution and in particular the 1917 Russian Revolution.The book is in two parts. Part One discusses and criticises some of the current theories of the novel (Lukács, Goldmann, Ian Watt), especially their deterministic, reductionist character. Gramsci's concept of hegemony is introduced to provide a more genuinely dialectical theory and brief examples are given from English, French and Russian literature. There can be no adequate analysis of the novel, of course, unless it is related to realism and modernism and in Chapters 3 and 4 there is an attempt to explore both the concept and practice of revolution in terms of hegemony and fictional form. Equally important is the necessity to distinguish between Marxism and Stalinism and to emphasise the degeneration of Marxist literary theory after the 1920s. Part Two examines these themes and problems in the novels of Gissing, Conrad, Jack London, Zamyatin, Victor Serge, Koestler cuid Solzhenitsyn.Many of the ideas in this book were first developed in the sociology of literature seminar held at the London School of Economics during the years 19702. Without that stimulus it is doubtful if this book would ever have been written and I would like to thank those who participated in those most enjoyable meetings.January 1975A.S.