This essay revisits Ian McEwan’s extremely successful novel Saturday, and interrogates its exemplary assessment of the British cultural climate after 9/11. The particular focus is on McEwan’s extensive recourse to the writings of Matthew Arnold, whose melancholy outlook on culture and anarchy McEwan basically translates into the 21st century without much ideological fraction. This relapse into Victorian liberal humanism as consolation for a Western world besieged by the contingencies of terrorism is extremely problematic. Not only does it wilfully ignore the transcultural realities of modern Britain, it also promotes an ahistorical and apolitical mode of critical inquiry which may be called reductive at best in view of the global challenges that the novel addresses.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:Potsdam/oai:kobv.de-opus-ubp:5922 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Eckstein, Lars |
| Publisher | Universität Potsdam, Philosophische Fakultät. Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik |
| Source Sets | Potsdam University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Postprint |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Hard Times. - ISSN: 0171-1695. - 89 (2011) 1, S. 6-10 |
| Rights | http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/doku/urheberrecht.php |
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