Crisis of the Novel and the Novel of Crisis

Abstract

"This essay has three more or less discrete parts; that is, no firm linear argument is developed across them. Each part informs the next, but the arguments taken up in each could also be contemplated separately. The first responds to the thrust of this special issue, and considers the relationship of the novel to the nation; the second focuses on a worldly concern of the present, the 2007-08 financial crisis, and how it features in the contemporary novel; and the third moves toward a possible project of exploring the contemporary novel in terms of the prevailing neoliberal lifeworld. Together, these parts try to accentuate some of the general features of the contemporary novel."