What Ever Happened to Modernism?

About this book

A personal penetrating and polemical account of what Modernism is and how contemporary literature has failed it The quality of todays literary writing arouses the strongest opinions. For novelist and critic Gabriel Josipovici the contemporary novel in English is profoundly disappointinga poor relation of its groundbreaking Modernist forebears. This agile and passionate book asks why. Modernism Josipovici suggests is only superficially a reaction to industrialization or a revolution in diction and form; essentially it is art coming to consciousness of its own limits and responsibilities. And its origins are to be sought not in 1850 or 1800 but in the early 1500s with the crisis of society and perception that also led to the rise of Protestantism. With sophistication and persuasiveness Josipovici charts some of Modernisms key stages from Drer Rabelais and Cervantes to the present bringing together a rich array of artists musicians and writers both familiar and unexpectedincluding Beckett Borges Friedrich Czanne Stevens Robbe-Grillet Beethoven and Wordsworth. He concludes with a stinging attack on the current literary scene in Britain and America which raises questions about not only national taste but contemporary culture itself. Gabriel Josipovici has spent a lifetime writing and writing about other writers. What Ever Happened to Modernism? is a strident call to arms and a tour de force of literary artistic and philosophical explication that will stimulate anyone interested in art in the twentieth century and today.