AustLit

The novel in English has been one of the most influential (and controversial) of modern literary forms. From the seventeenth century to the publicity surrounding the Booker Prize or the Oprah Book Club, readers and commentators have argued about the value and relevance of prose fiction: are novels ‘good' or ‘bad' for you?; how, why and should we get ‘lost' in a book?; what constitutes a novel in the first place?; does the novel have a future in the electronic age? This course is an introduction to the novel that explores these questions with reference to a selection of texts, ranging from the early nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. Novels to be studied will include: Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, Franz Kafka, The Trial, Toni Morrison, Beloved, Arvind Adiga, The White Tiger, Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.