JAMESON, Fredric
Inventions of a Present: The Novel in its Crisis of Globalization

A novel is an act, an intervention, which, most often, the naïve reader takes as a representation. The novel intervenes to modify or correct our conventional notions of a situation and, in the best and most intense cases, to propose a wholly new idea of what constitutes an event or of the very experience of living. The most interesting contemporary novels are those which try—and sometimes manage—to awaken our sense of a collectivity behind individual experience, revealing a relationship between the isolated subjectivity and a class or community. But even if this happens (which is rare), one must go on to find traces of collective praxis hidden away within the awakened feeling of inter-connection. And since it is in the sense of the nation and nationality that collectivity is most often expressed, there is an urgent need to disengage the possibilities of genuine action within these areas.

This sweeping collection of essays by “America’s leading Marxist critic” (Terry Eagleton) ranges from the elusive politics of North American literature to the sometimes frozen narrative experiences of the eastern countries and the Soviet Union and beyond. This is a voyage traversing the globe, through Conrad, James, Atwood, Oe, Mailer, Grass, Grossman, Garcia Márquez, Gibson, Knausgaard and more, discovering a common kinship between each literary destination in late capitalism itself. [publishers’ note]

Published by Verso, 2024
Essays / Literature / Art Theory