Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Also by Daniel R. Schwarz -- Chapter 1 Introduction: The Novel After 1900 -- Basic Premises -- What is Modernism? -- The Role of History in Shaping Fiction -- Human Choices -- The Complexity of Modernist Texts -- Principles of Selection -- Translations -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Chapter 2 Cultural Crisis: Decadence and Desire in Mann's Death in Venice (1912) -- The Author in the Text: Mann and Aschenbach -- Cultural Decadence and Enervation -- The Death Motif -- Aschenbach's Doubles: The Repressed Self Plays Back -- Seductive Beauty, Corrupting Pleasure: Venice and Aschenbach's Illicit Love -- Aschenbach's Use of Classical Contexts -- Aschenbach's Transformation and Demise -- Study Questions for Death in Venice -- Notes -- Chapter 3 Proust's Swann's Way (1913) and the Novel of Sensibility: Memory, Obsession, and Consciousness -- What Kind of Fiction Did Proust Write? -- Proust's Style -- "Combray 1": The Significance of the Opening Pages -- Multiple Selves -- Combray 2 -- Swann -- Why Does the Narrator Need to Tell Swann's Story? -- Part III: The Narrator's Obsession with Gilberte -- Study Questions for Swann's Way -- Notes -- Chapter 4 The Metamorphosis (1915): Kaf ka's Noir Challenge to Realism -- The Kafka Universe -- Kafka's Jewishness -- Kafka's World: The Trial and "In the Penal Colony" -- The Metamorphosis -- How The Metamorphosis Begins -- Metamorphosis as Transformation and Transvaluation -- Study Questions for The Metamorphosis -- Notes -- Chapter 5 Camus's Indifferent, Amoral, and Godless Cosmos: The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947) as Existential Novels -- Introduction -- Camus's The Stranger (1942) -- Introduction -- Historical Context -- The Stranger: Part One -- Meursault's Literary Ancestors -- Social Contexts for Meursault's Behavior.

The Stranger: Part Two -- Conclusion -- Afterword -- Study Questions for The Stranger -- The Plague -- Introduction -- What Kind of Fiction is The Plague? -- The Onset of the Plague -- The Plague as Allegory -- The Human Drama: Rieux as Protagonist and Narrator -- The Human Drama: Choice -- Conclusion -- Study Questions for The Plague -- Notes -- Chapter 6 Why Giorgio Bassani Matters: The Elegiac Imagined World of Bassani and the Jews of Ferrara -- Introduction: Making the Case for Bassani's Stature -- Bassani as Italian-Jewish Writer: Why History Matters -- The Jewish Community in Ferrara -- What Kind of Fiction Did Bassani Write? -- "A Plaque on Via Mazzini": A Story about Jewish Deportation and a Lone Single Return -- Bassani's Psychological Realism -- The Garden of the Finzi-Continis as Holocaust Text -- Bassani's Last Novel: The Heron -- Bassani the Modernist -- Study Questions for the Fiction of Giorgio Bassani -- Notes -- Chapter 7 The Novel as Elegy: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard (1958) -- Introduction -- Historical Context -- Sicily as Character -- Don Fabrizio, the Prince of Salina -- Tancredi -- The Penultimate Chapter -- The Ending -- Decadence -- The Narrative Voice -- Afterword -- Study Questions for The Leopard -- Notes -- Chapter 8 Günter Grass's The Tin Drum (1959): Reconfiguring European History as Fable -- Introduction -- The Autobiographical Element -- What Kind of Fiction is The Tin Drum? -- Magic Realism and the Uncanny -- Allegory and the Uncanny -- The Tin Drum and German Expressionism -- Grass's Historiography: Oskar, Hitler, and the German Nation -- The Rise of Nazism: The Chapter Entitled "Faith Hope Love" -- The Function of Oskar -- Oskar's Divided Self: The Paradigms of Goethe and Rasputin -- The Relationship Between the Personal and Political: Oskar's Drumming and Glass-shattering Screams.

How The Tin Drum Begins: Oskar as a Self-Dramatizing Narrator-Protagonist -- Book Three: Grass's Satiric Visions of Post-War Germany -- Resistant Reading: The Tin Drum's Failure to Render the Holocaust -- Afterword: The Film of The Tin Drum -- Study Questions for The Tin Drum -- Notes -- Chapter 9 Imre Kertész's Fatelessness (1975): Rendering the Holocaust as a Present Tense Event -- Introduction -- The Relevance of Fatelessness -- The Artistry of Fatelessness -- How Fatelessness Begins: Entering Georg's World -- Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Zeitz, and Back to Buchenwald -- Return to Budapest: Fatelessness within History's Fateful Web -- Conclusion -- Study Questions for Fatelessness -- Notes -- Chapter 10 Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984): History as Fate -- Introduction -- The Paradoxical Concepts of Lightness and Weight -- Tomas and Tereza -- Sabina -- The Political Theme -- The Narrator Wearing the Mask of Author -- Kundera's Concept of Form in The Unbearable Lightness of Being -- Conclusion -- Study Questions for The Unbearable Lightness of Being -- Notes -- Chapter 11 Saramago's The History of the Siege of Lisbon (1989): Rewriting History, Reconfiguring Lives -- Introduction -- Saramago's Style: Innovative, Imaginative, Idiosyncratic -- How the Concept of the Siege Functions -- Historical Contexts -- Reconfiguring History -- Historiography -- Narrative Form -- Raimundo Silva -- The Mutual Siege on Affections: How and Why Maria Sara and Silva Find One Another -- The Crucial Telephone Conversation -- Study Questions for The History of the Siege of Lisbon -- Notes -- Chapter 12 Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red (1998): Cultural Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Istanbul and its Modern Implications -- Introduction -- Thematic Issues: Ottoman Miniatures versus European Art -- Pamuk's Aesthetic.

Pamuk's Originality: Transgressive Form in My Name is Red -- Shekure -- The Murder Suspects -- Religious Fanaticism -- The Murderer's Psychology -- Historical Implications -- Conclusion: Notes toward a Resistant Reading -- Study Questions for My Name is Red -- Notes -- Chapter 13 Herta Müller's The Hunger Angel (2009): A Hunger for Life, A Hunger for Words -- Introduction -- Historical Background -- The Title -- Leo's Narration as Bildungsroman Manqué -- Parallels to Holocaust Narratives -- Words -- How The Hunger Angel Begins -- The Labor Camp -- Hunger -- Leo's Imagination -- The Parabolic Function of Characters -- Leo's Return: Dissonance and Homosexuality -- My Resistant Reading -- Study Questions for The Hunger Angel -- Notes -- Chapter 14 Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet: Women Discovering Their Voices in a Violent and Sexist Male Society -- Introduction -- What Kind of Fiction is Ferrante Writing? -- Radical Disruption: Ferrante's The Days of Abandonment (2002) -- Social Class and Class Satire -- Naples -- Form and Style: The Shape of the Narrative -- Form: Opening -- Form: Epilogue -- Elena and Lila's Relationship and Their Struggle for Freedom in a Patriarchal Society -- Elena as Author -- The Author in the Text, The Author as the Text -- The Concept of Authorial Textuality -- Ferrante as Authorial Presence? -- Anita Raja aka Elena Ferrante -- My Reservations -- Study Questions for Ferrante's Neapolitan Tetralogy -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography (Including Works Cited) -- Primary Works -- Selected Bibliography and Critical Works -- Index -- EULA.