The Problem with Pleasure: Modernism and Its Discontents
Laura Frost, "The Problem with Pleasure: Modernism and Its Discontents"
English | ISBN: 0231152728 | 2013 | 304 pages | PDF | 1433 KB
English | ISBN: 0231152728 | 2013 | 304 pages | PDF | 1433 KB
Aldous Huxley decried "the horrors of modern 'pleasure,'" or the proliferation of mass produced, widely accessible entertainment that could degrade or dull the mind. He and his contemporaries, including James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, D. H. Lawrence, and Jean Rhys, sought to radically redefine pleasure, constructing arduous and indirect paths to delight through their notoriously daunting work. Laura Frost follows these experiments in the art of unpleasure, connecting modernism's signature characteristics, such as irony, allusiveness, and obscurity, to an ambitious attempt to reconfigure bliss.