Degenerative Realism
A new strain of realism has arisen in France. Novels that contain it represent diverse fears--immigration and demographic change, radical Islam, feminism, new technologies, globalization, American…
Specifikacia Degenerative Realism
A new strain of realism has arisen in France. Novels that contain it represent diverse fears--immigration and demographic change, radical Islam, feminism, new technologies, globalization, American capitalism, and the European Union--but these books, often best-sellers, share crucial affinities. In their dystopian visions, the collapse of France, Europe, and Western civilization is portrayed as all but certain and the literary mode of realism begins to break down. Above all, they depict a degenerative force whose effects on the nation and on reality itself can be felt.Examining key novels by Michel Houellebecq, Fr d ric Beigbeder, Aur lien Bellanger, Yann Moix, and other French writers, Christy Wampole identifies and critiques this emergent tendency toward "degenerative realism." She considers the ways these writers draw on social science, the New Journalism of the 1960s, political