Postmodern Strategies in Alasdair Gray's 'Lanark: A Life in 4 Books'

This book shows how Alasdair Gray's first novel, Lanark: A Life in 4 Books, shares some of the thematic and formal concerns of postmodernist literature. The analysis is preceded by an introductory chapter which relates Gray to both the English and the Scottish literary traditions. Next, the author focuses on Lanark and explores the way the novel offers a representation of society in terms of ontological instability and dystopia as well as the implications to be drawn from its experimental nature.

Autorentext

The Author: Luis de Juan teaches English Literature at the University of Zaragoza, Spain. He has published several articles and book chapters on Alasdair Gray and other postmodernist authors. He is at present working on contemporary Scottish fiction.

Zusammenfassung
"Luis De Juan's book offers both a valuable summary of the present state of the debate on one of the great British contributions to postmodern writing as well as a careful and knowledgeable study of the paradigms of postmodern writing. Above all, Luis De Juan shows that the academic enquiry into Scottish literature can profit from the more theoretical approach of continental research, especially in the field of narratology." (Christoph Ehland, Anglia)

Inhalt
Contents: Alasdair Gray's first novel Postmodernist Literature Experimental Literature English and Scottish literary traditions.