The Triumph of Artifice: Treasures of Twentieth-Century Narrative

This critical study of a momentous development of narrative art in literature and film of the late twentieth century climaxes in detailed analyses of works by Nabokov, Pynchon, Barth, Bellow, and Lessing. Starting from thorough explications of Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, Durrell's Alexandria Quartet, and the film Last Year at Marienbad by Resnais and Robbe-Grillet, it provides insights into the workings of such narrative artists as Lubitsch, Borges, Bioy-Casares, Malamud, Garcia Marques, Fellini, Bergman, Cassavetes, and Welty. The approach also involves provocative discussions of movies based on fiction such as Slaughterhouse-Five, A Clockwork Orange, and Blow-up.