John Banville: Fictions of Order offers a comprehensive reading of the work of a major figure in present-day European literature. Its aim is a reappraisal of John Banville's novels in the context of contemporary theory and criticism. Without reducing literary texts to mere illustrations of theoretical positions, this study intends to show how these novels, as highly self-conscious textual artifices, themselves react to a wide range of ideas, concepts, and constructions from the history of Western science and philosophy.
In their engagement with problems of reality and fiction in science and art, Banville's novels imply a history of the modern imagination. They address the changing status of fiction and of visual representation, of what is regarded or experienced as authentic and authorised as legitimate in different contexts. Beyond mere questions of periodic succession or taxonomic constructions (e.g. modernism vs. postmodernism), the reading is based on theoretical considerations of authority and authorship, their origins in modernity, and their functioning in a contemporary cultural setting. Drawing on a large number of theoretical orientations from Weber to Blumenberg, Luhmann, and Derrida, this study uses Banville's novels to explore the possibilities of literary communication at the contemporary moment in relation to scientific and aesthetic discourses.
In their engagement with problems of reality and fiction in science and art, Banville's novels imply a history of the modern imagination. They address the changing status of fiction and of visual representation, of what is regarded or experienced as authentic and authorised as legitimate in different contexts. Beyond mere questions of periodic succession or taxonomic constructions (e.g. modernism vs. postmodernism), the reading is based on theoretical considerations of authority and authorship, their origins in modernity, and their functioning in a contemporary cultural setting. Drawing on a large number of theoretical orientations from Weber to Blumenberg, Luhmann, and Derrida, this study uses Banville's novels to explore the possibilities of literary communication at the contemporary moment in relation to scientific and aesthetic discourses.