Brown, R (2019) Cold War Fictions. In: Head, D, (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Ian McEwan. Cambridge Companions to Literature . Cambridge University Press , Cambridge, UK , pp. 75-90. ISBN 978-1-108-48033-8
Abstract
This chapter offers a detailed reading of McEwan’s 2012 novel Sweet Tooth as a highly self-conscious and allusive literary spy thriller of the Cold War era, one which invites a renewed attention to the Cold War themes, ideas and literary strategies which have been important in his work since the late 1970s in which the novel is set. These flourished especially in the two novels written around the fall of the Berlin Wall, The Innocent and Black Dogs which also receive extended treatment here. In McEwan’s reworking of the Cold War spy thriller as postmodern literary fiction we find, it is argued, a recurrent fascination with misunderstandings and readjustments in emotional and political relations between the sexes as an analogy for Cold War politics and vice versa. Added to this McEwan increasingly packs his fictions with informed literary debate that constitute a profound exploration of literary genres and of the complex relationship between author and reader.
Metadata
Item Type: | Book Section |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019, Cambridge University Press. This material has been published in The Cambridge Companion to Ian McEwan, edited by Dominic Head [https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108648516.006]. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution or re-use. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Ian McEwan; Cold War; relations between the sexes; genre; spy fiction; literary self-consciousness; precarious lives; postmodernism |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of English (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 24 Apr 2019 13:02 |
Last Modified: | 04 Jan 2020 01:39 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Series Name: | Cambridge Companions to Literature |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/9781108648516.006 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:145150 |