Includes bibliographical references (pages 203-207) and index.
CONTENTS NOTE
Text of Note
I: To the Reader -- "Shards from the Explosion" / Lilian Furst -- II: London -- "Twin Souls" / Anita Brookner -- "The Hidden Abyss" / Gillian Tindall -- "A Success Story" / Ruth Prawer Jhabvala -- III: British Provinces -- "Try to Forget" / Maureen Duffy -- "To Serve Under the Chimney" / W.G. Sebald -- IV: New York -- "The Great Loss" / Bernard Malamud -- "An Abundance of Happiness" / Ruth Prawer Jhabvala -- "A Bizarre Double Game" / Isaac Bashevis Singer -- V: US Provinces -- "Can You Harmonize?" / Carol Asch -- "An Inconsequential Appendix and Coda" / Randall Jarrell -- VI: India -- "Accepting but not Accepted" / Anita Desai -- "The Hanger-On" / Ruth Prawer Jhabvala -- "A Bit in the Middle of Nowhere" / Lilian Furst -- VII: Notes.
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SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
Random Destinations examines how novels and short stories portray those who managed to escape from Central Europe in the 1930s following the rise of Nazism. They faced many concrete and psychological problems at their random destinations: language acquisition, adjustment to different mores, fitting into the community, coming to terms with having been rejected by their homeland, the conflict between the desire to remember and/or forget their past, and, above all, the need to reshape their identities. Their personal struggles are contextualized within their historical situation, both global and specific to their new locale. The book argues that fiction, by taking ordinary escapees' difficulties into account, paradoxically offers a subtler and more truer picture that sociological studies that have tended to foreground the successes of a few outstanding individuals.
ACQUISITION INFORMATION NOTE
Source for Acquisition/Subscription Address
Palgrave Macmillan
Stock Number
302884
OTHER EDITION IN ANOTHER MEDIUM
Title
Random destinations.
TOPICAL NAME USED AS SUBJECT
English fiction-- 20th century-- History and criticism.