{"product_id":"joe-versus-the-volcano-dvd-0888574489786","title":"Joe Versus the Volcano","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom the Foreword by Bernard Benstock: \u003cbr\u003eA fresh and imaginative contribution to comparative literary criticism . . . in a psychological examination unrestricted by existing dogmas.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe reader's initial sense of surprise soon gives way to a sense of discovery, thanks to the author's well-formulated and theoretically sound introduction of a new side of these texts.--Peter Barta, Texas Tech University\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn a comparative study, Galya Diment draws a novel comparison between two giants of Modernism and a relatively obscure nineteenth-century Russian Realist, claiming that the three writers all reinvented the idea of duality in literature. Focusing on Woolf's \u003ci\u003eTo the Lighthouse, \u003c\/i\u003e Joyce's \u003ci\u003eUlysses, \u003c\/i\u003e and Goncharov's\u003ci\u003e A Common Story, \u003c\/i\u003e she introduces and refines the idea of co-consciousness as the mechanism that allows each work to transcend the genre of the autobiographical bildungsroman and the classical tradition of duality, represented by the doppelganger.\u003cbr\u003e Defining co-consciousness as the means by which writers fictionalize what appear to be equally conscious sides of their personalities, she argues that this concept is the telling distinction between these three divided-they-stand writers and the divided-they-fall approach of other celebrated masters of the double. A crucial feature of the three writers is their tendency to tolerate the split personality as an inevitable yet not life-threatening condition. \u003cbr\u003e Diment presents strong evidence that the fictional split self often functions not only as an expression of a writer's inner conflicts but also as a powerful and conscious artistic tool. For Woolf, Joyce, and Goncharov, she writes, the fictional alter ego appears to act as a critical buffer between the writers themselves and their autobiographical material.\u003cbr\u003e The author discusses at some length the extent to which the concept of simultaneous consciousness is psychologically valid, and she pays considerable attention to the dual nature of the periods that formed each writer's sensibilities. She ends the main part of the book with\u003ci\u003e Ulysses, \u003c\/i\u003e she says, because she believes that in this novel the co-conscious split autobiograpical self has found its perfect home.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGalya Diment is associate professor of Russian at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is the coeditor of\u003ci\u003e Between Heaven and Hell: The Myth of Siberia in Russian Culture \u003c\/i\u003eand the author of the forthcoming\u003ci\u003e 'Pniniade': Vladimir Nabokov and Marc Szeftel, \u003c\/i\u003e as well as many articles on Russian, English, and comparative literature.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49686914138385,"sku":"DVDB072BW3NM8VG","price":49.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53602893005073,"sku":"DVDB072BW3NM8LN","price":49.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/B072BW3NM8.jpg?v=1751099208","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/products\/joe-versus-the-volcano-dvd-0888574489786","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}