Psychic Connection and the Twentieth-Century British Novel : From Telepathy to the Network Novel

Taylor, Mark

Edinburgh University Press（2025/12発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 200 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781399524490

Full Description

Criticism of the novel routinely starts with the assumption that characters must think, develop and strive for self-fulfilment as individuals. This book challenges the paradigm that individualism is innate to the novel as a medium. It describes how major writers throughout the twentieth century many convinced by the supposed findings of parapsychology rejected the idea of the discrete character. Treating the self as porous, they offered novels structured around the development of communities and ideas rather than individuals. By focusing on D. H. Lawrence, Olaf Stapledon, Aldous Huxley and Doris Lessing, Mark Taylor demonstrates the need to broaden our approach to character when addressing the novel of the twentieth century and beyond.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Psychic Speculations and the Porous Self

1. D. H. Lawrence and the Novel of Connected Individuals

2. Olaf Stapledon and the Scope of Interpersonal Connection

3. Aldous Huxley, Telepathy and the Decentring of Personality in the Novel of Ideas

4. Doris Lessing, Deindividuated Characters and Hybrid Identity

Conclusion: The Network Novel, Inclusion and Infusion

Notes

Works Cited

Index