Physical vitality (the object of desire in modern narratives)

Author: Brooks, Peter (Author)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: A fascinating and thought-provoking book. — Juliet Mitchell A truly extraordinary book is a major achievement. — Fredric Jameson The Body in Pain—The Making and Unmaking of the Modern Subject primarily interprets the works of writers such as Rousseau, Balzac, and Flaubert, as well as artists like Manet and Gauguin, through the lens of psychoanalysis. It elucidates the intricate relationship between the body as an object of desire and modern narration, visual representation, and even the very construction and concealment of language itself—without requiring any specialized knowledge. The desire to know the body is a powerful force in storytelling. Peter Brooks argues that modern narration is keen on revealing the body to uncover a truth that can only be written in the flesh. In this book, which delves into a wealth of literary and artistic works, Brooks demonstrates how imagination strives to bring the body into language and how stories are inscribed upon the body. From Rousseau, Balzac, Mary Shelley, and Flaubert to George Eliot, Zola, Henry James, and Marguerite Duras, from Manet and Gauguin to Mapplethorpe, writers and artists have been obsessed with the body—the inescapable other of the soul. Brooks is well-versed in psychoanalysis, which enriches his argument: how the "cognitive imperative"—the desire to know—guides the plot of novels and our reading. It is through the body of the sexes that symbol and language ultimately provide the very components for language itself, yet symbol and language also distance us from the body. Yet the mind and language need to reclaim the body as the primary other domain for their definition. Brooks shows why and how the female body became a site for displaying the society's desires, anxieties, and contradictions. He also explains how writers and artists discovered the dynamics and driving forces of storytelling within the female body.