The kibbutz novel as erotic melodrama

摘要

Prominent Israeli writers and critics have repeatedly claimed that it is nearly impossible to write a realist social novel in a social reality that is still in the making. The challenge faced by kibbutz writers was even greater, given the great dynamism of the kibbutz as an arena of social experimentation and the incongruity between a positive, common experience, and the personal, gloomy themes expected from “good literature.” In their attempt to overcome these difficulties, most kibbutz writers produced erotic melodramas set against a documentary background. Had they followed Georg Lukács's and Mikhail Bakhtin's advice, they might have made the kibbutz the narrative material of their novels' plots themselves, rather than the “background” of erotic melodramas.View full textDownload full textKeywordsfiction, realism, surrealism, existentialism, pioneers, kibbutz, Bakhtin, Lukács, Kafka, Agnon, Brenner, OzRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13531042.2012.660382