The American Novel After Ideology, 19612000

Claims of ideologys end are, on the one hand, performative denials of ideologys inability to end; while, on the other hand, paradoxically, they also reiterate an idea that ending is simply what all ideologies eventually do. Situating her work around the intersecting publications of Daniel Bells The End of Ideology (1960) and J.D. Salingers Franny and Zooey (1961), Laurie Rodrigues argues that American novels express this paradox through nuanced applications of non-realist strategies, distorting realism in manners similar to ideologys distortions of reality, history, and belief. Reflecting the astonishing cultural variety of this period, The American Novel After Ideology, 1961 - 2000 examines Franny and Zooey, Carlene Hatcher Polites The Flagellants (1967), Leslie Marmon Silkos Almanac of the Dead (1991), and Philip Roths The Human Stain (2001) alongside the various discussions around ideology with which they intersect. Each novels plotless narratives, dissolving subjectivities, and cultural codes organize the texts peculiar relations to the post-ideological age, suggesting an aesthetic return of the repressed.