{"product_id":"falling-short-aleksandar-stevic-9780813944029","title":"Falling Short: The Bildungsroman and the Crisis of Self-Fashioning","description":"\u003cp\u003eA paradox haunts the bildungsroman: few protagonists successfully complete the process of maturation and socialization that ostensibly defines the form. From the despondent endings of Dickens's \u003ci\u003eGreat Expectations\u003c\/i\u003e and Meredith's \u003ci\u003eThe Ordeal of Richard Feverel\u003c\/i\u003e to the suicide of Balzac's Lucien de Rubempré and the demise of Eliot's Maggie and Tom Tulliver, the nineteenth-century bildungsroman offers narratives of failure, paralysis, and destruction: goals cannot be achieved, identities are impossible to forge, and the narrative of socialization routinely crumbles. Examining the novels of Stendhal, Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Henry James, Samuel Butler, James Joyce, and Marcel Proust, \u003ci\u003eFalling Short\u003c\/i\u003e reveals not only a crisis of character development but also a crisis of plotting and narrative structure. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFrom the inception of literary realism in the 1830s to the height of modernism a century later, the bildungsroman presents itself as a key symptom of modern Europe's inability to envision either coherent subjectivity or successful socialization. Rather than articulating an arc of personal development, Stevic argues, the bildungsroman tends to condemn its heroes to failure because our modern understanding of both individual subjectivity and social success remains riddled with contradictions. Placing primary texts in conversation with the central historical debates of their time, \u003ci\u003eFalling Short\u003c\/i\u003e offers a revisionist history of the realist and modernist bildungsroman, unearthing the neglected role of defeat in the history of the genre.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Aleksandar Stevic\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0813944023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780813944029\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Virginia Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/09\/2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 262\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.23lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.75d","brand":"Aleksandar Stevic","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":44059834515711,"sku":"9780813944029","price":65.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_28ab1d46-9c15-45f8-96c3-309b00da8846.jpg?v=1685060594","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/falling-short-aleksandar-stevic-9780813944029","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}