{"product_id":"the-challenge-of-bewilderment-9781501722714","title":"The Challenge of Bewilderment","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Challenge of Bewilderment\u003c\/i\u003e treats the epistemology of representation in major works by Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Ford Madox Ford, attempting to explain how the novel turned away from its traditional concern with realistic representation and toward self-consciousness about the relation between knowing and narration. Paul B. Armstrong here addresses the pivotal thematic experience of bewilderment, an experience that challenges the reader's very sense of reality and that shows it to have no more certainty or stability than an interpretative construct. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough readings of \u003ci\u003eThe Sacred Fount\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Ambassadors\u003c\/i\u003e by James, \u003ci\u003eLord Jim\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eNostromo\u003c\/i\u003e by Conrad, and \u003ci\u003eThe Good Soldier\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eParade's End\u003c\/i\u003e by Ford, Armstrong examines how each writer dramatizes his understanding of the act of knowing. Armstrong demonstrates how the novelists' attitudes toward the process of knowing inform experiments with representation, through which they th\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn short, Armstrong’s close, careful readings of James, Conrad, and Ford incorporate philosophical aesthetics into a unique interpretive vocabulary. As a result, \u003ci\u003eThe Challenge of Bewilderment\u003c\/i\u003e finally advocates what it examines: the idea that readers may learn through a reflective response to bewilderment to suspend their investment in the social codes that construct their world, while attaining a capacity to reflect critically on the self-sustaining artifice of signs and meaning.\u003c\/p\u003e -- Richard Swartz * The Henry James Review *","brand":"Cornell University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49409330151767,"sku":"9781501722714","price":15.19,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-challenge-of-bewilderment-9781501722714","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}