Family and Relationships in Ian McEwan's Fiction: Between Fantasy and Desire

(Hardback)

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Description

The book provides a lucid analysis of all Ian McEwan fiction published to date, from his 1975 debut short stories up to the 2016 novel Nutshell, spanning forty years of his literary career. Apart from a general discussion of McEwans works, the study offers a uniform focal point: it concentrates on one of the key issues taken up by the writer the aspect of relationships between partners and between family members. As the book demonstrates, the novelist employs interpersonal relations to establish a pertinent context in which he can dramatically portray the process of identity formation in his characters. Throughout his fiction, McEwan consistently uses references to psychoanalysis, either veiled or direct. The proposed book investigates the novelists oeuvre through the lens of the psychoanalytic theory developed by Jacques Lacan. The approach used makes the book useful both for readers well familiar with this apparatus, and for those who need introduction to Lacanian psychoanalysis and such of his concepts as desire, fantasy, the symbolic order or the Name-of-the-Father.

Reviews

An excellent blend of critical explication and close analysis; Dobrogoszcz deftly and originally combines thought-provoking elucidation of the novels with a consistent theoretical perspective throughout. -- Peter Childs, Newman University, Birmingham
Dobrogoszczs study of McEwans fiction is marked by an exemplary scope and focus on detail. It offers exciting and up-to-date readings of individual texts and of the oeuvre as a whole. This study is a stimulating guide to the complexities of character relationships in McEwans work. Dobrogoszczs Lacanian approach is presented with such lucidity and relevance that readers who read texts from other perspectives will be convinced and enlightened. -- David Malcolm, University of Gdansk
Dobrogoszczs up-to-date book about family and amorous relationships in Ian McEwans work is a fine addition to McEwan studies. Building on existing McEwan criticism, his explorations are comprehensive, rigorous, and provide powerfully insightful interpretations of the role of emotions and (post-)Freudian psychology in the work of one of todays finest living writers. Dobrogoszcz reads McEwan from the early short stories through Nutshell, showing that parental inadequacy, selfishness and other behavioral shortcomings are a recipe for disaster, often tragic, always human. -- Sebastian Groes, University of Wolverhampton

Author Bio

Tomasz Dobrogoszcz is assistant professor of English at the University of Lodz