The City in Literature: An Intellectual and Cultural History (Paperback)

by Richard Lehan (Author) "The city has determined our cultural fate for the last three hundred years-has become inseparable from our personal and national destiny..." (more)
Key Phrases: urban entropy, literary naturalism, urban signs, New York, Dos Passos, Los Angeles (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
...an ambitiously wide-ranging and erudite account of not simply how western novelists have depicted the city in their work but of how the very form of the city has influenced the novel. [Lehan] displays more affinity for literary theory than for the texture and life of cities, and accordingly the discussion takes place on a fairly abstract plane.... [H]owever, the city is built as much upon imagination as with concrete and steel, so there is something to be said for Lehan's approach. -- The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, Tom Vanderbilt

Product Description
In this sweeping literary encounter with the Western idea of the city, Richard Lehan delves into literature, philosophy, and urban history to untangle the contradictory images and meanings of the urban experience. He traces the relationship between literature and the city from the early novel in England to the apocalyptic cityscapes of Thomas Pynchon. Along the way, Lehan gathers a rich entourage of support that includes Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Bram Stoker, H. Rider Haggard, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Raymond Chandler. The European city is read against the decline of feudalism and the rise of empire and totalitarianism, the American city against the phenomenon of the wilderness, the frontier, and the rise of the megalopolis.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 307 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (April 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520212568
• ISBN-13: 978-0520212565
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #668,560 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars not very specific!, December 4, 2001

By	Bo K. (California!!!) - See all my reviews

An ok general analysis of the theme of the city in literature but some major problems limit the interest of the book. The focus is largely on works written in English. There are only a handful of pages on Baudelaire, Balzac, Calvino, Dostoevsky; nothing on Kerouac and the Beats; a great deal on Eliot and Joyce that reads more like a summary of their work instead of an analysis of the role of the city in their work. The book's emphasis on Modernism also overplays the theme of alienation and the city, and almost completely ignores the element of cultural cross-pollination and creativity that can result from a stimulating urban milieu. By spending so much time on Eliot's "Four Quartets, " a reader might get the impression that there is nothing redeeming about cities and they only serve to grind down the masses with their impersonality and distance from nature.
This book is perhaps best suited for a bright high school student who is looking for a good frame in which to put some of their reading. Otherwise, head back to Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford and others. Good bibliography in here, however....