Writing the City: Eden, Babylon and the New Jerusalem

by Peter Preston, Paul Simpson-Housley

Overview

'The expression of human experience it embodies ... includes all personal history'.
Saul Bellow's view of the city is far from that of classic geographical descriptions which look at growth or decline, demographic patterns, traffic flows and economic potential: these empirically conceived models of urban geography fail to accommodate the crucial human aspect of city life.
Located at the interface of geography and literature, Writing the City visualizes the city through the hopes, aspirations, disappointments and pains of international novelists and creative writers. From Manchester, Montreal and Sydney to Osaka, Varanasi amd Odessa, cities become more than their built environment, more than a set of class or economic relationships: they are also an experience to be lived, suffered and undergone.
Thus cities are seen in terms of the innocence of an Eden now lost, a threat of sinful Babylon and the promise of a New Jerusalem.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781134843671
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/11/2002
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Peter Preston, Paul Simpson-Housley

Table of Contents

List of maps and figures, Notes on contributors, Acknowledgements, 1 INTRODUCTION: WRITING THE CITY, 2 BELFAST: BERNARD MAC LAVERTY’S HEART OF DARKNESS, 3 MANCHESTER AND MILTON-NORTHERN: ELIZABETH GASKELL AND THE INDUSTRIAL TOWN, 4 CONTRASTING THE NATURE OF THE WRITTEN CITY: HELSINKI IN REGIONALISTIC THOUGHT AND AS A DWELLING-PLACE, 5 THE ST. PETERSBURG OF OBLOMOV AND CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, 6 CITY-ICON IN A POETIC GEOGRAPHY: PUSHKIN’S ODESSA, 7 VERY DIFFERENT MONTREALS: PATHWAYS THROUGH THE CITY AND ETHNICITY IN NOVELS BY AUTHORS OF DIFFERENT ORIGINS, 8 CITY PRIMEVAL: HIGH NOON IN ELMORE LEONARD’S DETROIT, 9 WILLA CATHER AS A CITY NOVELIST, 10 A PLACE OF TOMBS: THE CHARLESTON OF WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS, 11 JERUSALEM IN S.Y.AGNON’S YESTERDAY BEFORE YESTERDAY, 12 MODERN VARANASI: PLACE AND SOCIETY IN SHIVPRASAD SINGH’S STREET TURNS YONDER, 13 CHIKAMATSU’S OSAKA, 14 GAZING ON APARTHEID: POST-COLONIAL TRAVEL NARRATIVES OF THE GOLDEN CITY, 15 TINSEL TOWN: SYDNEY AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF CHRISTINA STEAD, 16 TRANSGRESSING BOUNDARIES: ISABEL ALLENDE’S SANTIAGO DE CHILE, 17 EDEN, BABYLON, NEW JERUSALEM: A TAXONOMY FOR WRITING THE CITY, Index