Abstract
Using the concepts of manipulation and simulation as diagnostic terms for modernity, this article offers a cross-reading of Dostoevsky's `Demons' ('Besy' 1872) and William Gaddis's novels `The Recognitions' (1955) and `JR' (1975). It stages a dialogue in terms of a change in perspectives instead of showing a case of literary influence. The dialogue concerns filling and (re)presenting a gap that can only be called ``demonic.'' In the case of Dostoevsky, the hap is due to the opaqueness of human beings and the hysterical subjectivity it generates,which can no longer be healed by communication. In Gaddis, entropic communication engenders and enhances an opaqueness of the real world, as it were a hysterical objectivity of simulacra. Both authors search for adequate and radical modes of representation for what is unpresentable in this modernity.
Item Type: | Journal article |
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Faculties: | Languages and Literatures > Department 3 > English Studies |
Subjects: | 400 Language > 420 English and Old English languages 800 Literature > 820 English and Old English literatures |
ISSN: | 0003-7982 |
Language: | English |
Item ID: | 69011 |
Date Deposited: | 25. Sep 2019, 09:34 |
Last Modified: | 04. Nov 2020, 13:51 |