Conrad, Faulkner, and the Problem of NonSense

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Maurice Ebileeni explores the thematic and stylistic problems in the major novels of Joseph Conrad and William Faulkner through Jacques Lacans psychoanalytic theories. Against the background of the cultural, scientific, and historic changes that occurred at the turn of the 20th century, describing the landscape of ruins bequeathed to humanists by the forefathers of the Counter-Enlightenment movement (Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, and Baudelaire), Ebileeni proposes that Conrad and Faulkner wrote against impossible odds, metaphorically standing at the edge of a chaotic abyss that initially would spill over into the challenges of literary production. Both authors discovered that underneath, behind, or within the intuitively comprehensible narrative layers there exists a nonsensical dimension, constantly threatening to dissolve any attempt at producing intelligible meaning. Ebileeni argues that in Conrads and Faulkners major novels, the quest for meaning in confronting the prospects of nonsense becomes a necessary symptom of human experience to both avoid and engage the entropy of modern life.

Reviews

In much the same way as the dark edge of its shadow defines the subject of a painting, Ebileenis exceptionally well-researched and documented psychoanalytic study concerning the authorial choices of Conrad and Faulkner foregrounds their understanding of the concept of nonsense and identifies it as a major structural component in their mastery of the complexity of their art. * Conradiana *
Conrad, Faulkner, and the Problem of NonSense is a novel contribution to the field of literary studies, which so far has not really taken to a Lacanian approach. Introducing a new approach with clarity, the book offers its readers an original methodology to tackle a literary text that is most welcome today. What is remarkable is that Ebileeni makes his points with clarity and simplicity, while at the same time refusing to give up on a firm methodology based on state-of-the-art theoretical considerations. * Claude Maisonnat, Emeritus Professor of Contemporary Literature, Universit Lumire Lyon 2, France *
In Conrad, Faulkner, and the Problem of NonSense, Maurice Ebileeni has written a sophisticated and original analysis of the ineffable, of what language is incapable of expressing directly, in several important works by Joseph Conrad and William Faulkner. Conrad was Faulkners great mentor, and Ebileeni explores the surprising parallels among their themes and techniques. The theoretical foundations of the book primarily Lacanian are introduced with unusual clarity. Full of original insights for readers of Conrad and Faulkner, Conrad, Faulkner, and the Problem of NonSense is an intellectual treat, an appealing debut for an important young scholar. * Richard Ruppel, Professor of English, Chapman University, USA *
This insightful book is the strongest Lacanian account we have of the connection between two of the most consequential world novelists of the past century. In a series of sensitive readings of Conrads and Faulkners major novels, Ebeleeni tells the story of the invention of 'nonsense'the excess of reality and experience over contemporary capacities of convention and expressionas a modern art form, and the epic struggles of Conrad to 'endure' and Faulkner to 'prevail' over the implications of a world whose greatest concerns may lie in those realms beyond conventionalized 'sense.' An important and stimulating contribution. * Peter Lancelot Mallios, Associate Professor of English and American Studies, University of Maryland, USA *
Ebileenis study is a welcome contribution to the critical corpus. Owing to its methodological patience and clarity of conceptualization, the book provides an introduction to Lacanian concepts in a language that is free of jargon and performativity. This is an informed and original work that, by staging a return to some of the commonplaces of Conrad and Faulkner criticism through a Lacanian interpretative frame, reconfigures and defamiliarizes the way we read their major works. -- Yael Levin * Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas *

Author Bio

Maurice Ebileeni is Lecturer in the English Department at the University of Haifa, Israel.