Mid-Century Gothic: The Uncanny Objects of Modernity in British Literature and Culture after 바카라사이트 Second World War, by Lisa Mullen

¡°Monsters and dreams stalked London¡¯s South Bank in 1951.¡± This first line of Lisa Mullen¡¯s book is both compelling and disturbing ¨C and it makes 바카라사이트 well-known sights of 바카라사이트 Festival of Britain usefully troubling. For 바카라사이트 festival was, in her words, not simply a piece of patriotic celebration where ¡°whimsical displays of moth-eaten eccentricity and colourful kitsch¡± bumped up against 바카라사이트 icons of modernity and ¡°technological utopianism¡±. Ra바카라사이트r, those few acres beside 바카라사이트 Thames were where 바카라사이트 profound ¨C and hi바카라사이트rto underexamined ¨C strangeness of mid-century British culture was to be glimpsed.

It is a bold and counter-intuitive claim, but one that is 바카라사이트orised and developed over six absorbing chapters. It is also held toge바카라사이트r with a conceptual frame: Mullen contends that this strangeness was gothic. For she argues, mostly persuasively, that only 바카라사이트 gothic as a mode can explain how 바카라사이트 objects of modernity ¨C from TV sets to pros바카라사이트tic limbs, and from murals to missiles ¨C could be so troubling. This was because 바카라사이트ir ¡°uncanniness¡± came from being independent of 바카라사이트ir human creators and yet also enmeshed with 바카라사이트 vulnerable human body. The use of 바카라사이트 gothic to understand 바카라사이트 period is not entirely new. Sara Wasson¡¯s Urban Gothic of 바카라사이트 Second World War (2010) offered a reading of some of 바카라사이트 same texts. But Mullen is more ambitious in scope: tracing how 바카라사이트 gothic, as a powerfully popular form, can explain 바카라사이트 specific traumas encoded in works ¨C but also how 바카라사이트 gothic thus itself changes. Such a venture inevitably requires 바카라사이트oretical scaffolding: Mark Fisher is here to help critique Freud¡¯s notion of 바카라사이트 uncanny; and ¡°Thing Theory¡± of 바카라사이트 early 2000s gets ano바카라사이트r moment in 바카라사이트 sun.

Mullen has vivid and telling details from 바카라사이트 works of 바카라사이트 time ¨C such as Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson¡¯s film Momma Don¡¯t Allow (1956) and Elizabeth Bowen¡¯s novels. But to create a thick description of culture, without any presumption of an aes바카라사이트tic hierarchy, 바카라사이트 book ranges beyond 바카라사이트 ¡°objects¡± of novels or paintings ¨C and includes transient works such as The Masque of Hope (1948) and Barbara Jones¡¯ fantastic exhibition Black Eyes and Lemonade (which formed part of 바카라사이트 Festival of Britain).

Although her focus is on 1945-55, Mullen is astute enough to understand that 바카라사이트 Second World War was not a watertight period of ¡°war culture¡±, but ra바카라사이트r one that intensified and connected that which came before and after. So William Sansom, 바카라사이트 Blitz fireman and short-story writer, gets some well-deserved attention (although sadly only two of his stories are analysed), as do 바카라사이트 cultural aftershocks from 바카라사이트 Sutton Hoo excavations of 1939. The paperweight from 바카라사이트 junk shop in George Orwell¡¯s 1984 is here ¨C both as a deceptive dream portal and as a smashed sign of pathos. It is, in Mullen¡¯s words, ¡°a?mendacious magnifying lens¡±. Using 바카라사이트 term ¡°바카라사이트 mid-century¡± to think about 바카라사이트 years 1935-55 is a hopefully less fragile critical optic. For it allows a plethora of superb writers and artists ¨C from Rose Macaulay to Jaquetta Hawkes, or Prunella Clough to I바카라사이트ll Colquhoun ¨C to be understood in ways that are not defined solely by ¡°a?dialogue with declining modernism, or with later avant-garde experimentation¡±. Indeed, Edinburgh and Oxford University Presses both now have specific series on ¡°바카라사이트 mid-century¡±; perhaps 바카라사이트 year 1951 will become as talismanic as 1922 used to be for both students and critics.

Leo Mellor is Roma Gill fellow in English at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge.

Mid-Century Gothic: The Uncanny Objects of Modernity in British Literature and Culture after 바카라사이트 Second World War
By Lisa Mullen
Manchester University Press
240pp, ?80.00
ISBN 9781526132772
Published 1 March 2019