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What Seven Classic Novels Have to Say About the Stages of Life
Pantheon
August 2006
On Sale: August 15, 2006
288 pages ISBN: 0375424083 EAN: 9780375424083 Hardcover
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An illuminating exploration of how seven of the greatest
English novels of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries—Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre,
Middlemarch, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and
Between the Acts—portray the essential experiences of
life.
For Edward Mendelson—a professor of English and
comparative literature at Columbia University—these classic
novels tell life stories that are valuable to readers who
are thinking about the course of their own lives. Looking
beyond theories to the individual intentions of the authors
and taking into consideration their lives and times,
Mendelson examines the sometimes contradictory ways in which
the novels portray such major passages of life as love,
marriage, and parenthood. In Frankenstein’s story of
a new life, we see a searing representation of emotional
neglect. In Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre
the transition from childhood to adulthood is portrayed in
vastly different ways even though the sisters who wrote the
books shared the same isolated life. In Mrs. Dalloway
we see an ideal and almost impossible adult love. Mendelson
leads us to a fresh and fascinating new understanding of
each of the seven novels, reminding us—in the most
captivating way—why they matter.
The Things That
Matter is a book that will delight all passionate readers.
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