Frank Kermode returns to the literature of his youth to ask why we appear to have forgotten how urgent and powerful it seemed in a time of economic crisis and imminent world war. The general questions suggested by the title are answered first by a study of bourgeois left wing literature in the 1930s - including a case study of a forgotten novel of the period (Stephen Haggard's Nya, OPB, 1988) - and then by a consideration of the problem of value in work belonging to a period earlier than one's own. The last chapter concentrates on the most recent attempt to make these issues manageable - namely, postmodernism, which rejects all notions of wholeness, and speaks of a catastrophic break with the past.
Reviews
'it is a bold and expert defence of the '30s writers, in which historical perspective and personal memory work to show how practical criticism and a sense of period can recuperate literature and clarify criticism ... an eloquence that is inseparable from the clarity of his argument and the gravity of his purpose.' The Age
'readers never have the feeling here of being lectured at: rather, they are drawn into a witty, intelligent and civilised debate in which a great many topics are touched on and the continuing revolutionary movements of living history are viewed sympathetically and with understanding.' Observer
'Where others find fault he is not embarrassed to praise. He hears in the political literature of the Thirties a lucid note of awe and wonder.' London Review of Books
'so elegant, so intelligent a writer' D. J. Enright, Times Literary Supplement
'Kermode's book is always lucid, often brilliantly insightful. Essential for scholars and students of the period.' Library Journal
'a cogent defence of the now-unfashionable principle of evaluation ... a bold and expert defence of the '30s writers' The Age
'At times Kermode's bare and unemphatic style issues into an eloquence that is inseparable from the clarity of his argument and the gravity of his purpose ... passionate and elegant book' Peter Craven, Age
'Oxford University Press deserves many congratulations on their institution - and on the choice of Professor Kermode for their inauguration.' Roma Gill, Notes and Queries
'he recovers some forgotten texts and introduces some new motifs that can only modify our reading of that decade' Robert Sullivan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Volume 91 No. 2 (April 1992)



Book Information
ISBN 9780198122241
Author Frank Kermode
Format Paperback
Page Count 160
Imprint Clarendon Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 233g
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 139mm * 12mm