Afterlives of Abandoned Work

Zusatztext Most literary historians discuss abandoned art in doleful! pitying terms. Not Matthew Harle: he sees 'failure' as fertile. In this delightful and whip-smart cultural travelogue! he drifts across the 20th century and the institutions that (sometimes bathetically) try to archive it! offering a series of fascinating meditations on utopian colonies in Los Angeles! postwar British urban planning! Harold Pinter's efforts to bring Proust to the big screen. These projects! in their different ways unfinished and incomplete! emerge as zones of intellectual possibility! conceptual play! infinite and eccentric potential. Zusammenfassung Afterlives of Abandoned Work considers the relevance of unfinished projects to literary history and criticism! looking beyond famous posthumous work to investigate the abandoned everyday! from scrapped plans and rejected ideas to half-written novels or unfinished artistic works. It traces how the reading of abandoned creative endeavor-whether arriving in the form of a rejection letter! a disagreement with a collaborator! or the simple act of walking away from one's desk-can change the way we think about cultural production! the creative process! and the intellectual construction of everyday life. Over five distinct journeys through a variety of archives! from major research libraries to the unique collections of individual enthusiasts! Matthew Harle draws surprising connections between literary studies! media studies! and visual arts! exploring unfinished projects from Thomas Pynchon! Muriel Spark! B.S. Johnson! Harold Pinter! and others. Rooted in literary criticism! Afterlives of Abandoned Work reads unbuilt buildings! unfilmed screenplays! and unpublished novels and radio sketches as forms of text that can help us consider the enduring fragmentation and anecdotal construction of cultural form! as well as expand literary criticism's approach to the archive. Informationen zum Autor Matthew Harle is a writer! archive curator and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Barbican Centre! UK. His writing has appeared in a number of publications! such as Sight & Sound ! Screen ! CITY and Cineaste ! and he is the co-editor of Of Mud and Flame: A Penda's Fen Sourcebook (2018). Inhaltsverzeichnis List of IllustrationsAcknowledgments1. On the Shelf : An Introduction to Abandoned Work 2. The Writing and Rewriting of Place: The Story of Llano del Rio3. Town Fictions : Planning the Future in Postwar London 4. A Shattering Achievement : Piecing Together Pinter's Proust5. The Frugal Charade: Ideas for Books in Literary Archives6. Remains to Be Seen: AfterwordBibliographyIndex ...

Zusammenfassung
Afterlives of Abandoned Work considers the relevance of unfinished projects to literary history and criticism, looking beyond famous posthumous work to investigate the abandoned everyday, from scrapped plans and rejected ideas to half-written novels or unfinished artistic works. It traces how the reading of abandoned creative endeavorwhether arriving in the form of a rejection letter, a disagreement with a collaborator, or the simple act of walking away from one's deskcan change the way we think about cultural production, the creative process, and the intellectual construction of everyday life. Over five distinct journeys through a variety of archives, from major research libraries to the unique collections of individual enthusiasts, Matthew Harle draws surprising connections between literary studies, media studies, and visual arts, exploring unfinished projects from Thomas Pynchon, Muriel Spark, B.S. Johnson, Harold Pinter, and others. Rooted in literary criticism, Afterlives of Abandoned Work reads unbuilt buildings, unfilmed screenplays, and unpublished novels and radio sketches as forms of text that can help us consider the enduring fragmentation and anecdotal construction of cultural form, as well as expand literary criticism's approach to the archive.

Inhalt
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1. On the Shelf: An Introduction to Abandoned Work 2. The Writing and Rewriting of Place: The Story of Llano del Rio 3. Town Fictions: Planning the Future in Postwar London 4. A Shattering Achievement: Piecing Together Pinter's Proust 5. The Frugal Charade: Ideas for Books in Literary Archives 6. Remains to Be Seen: Afterword Bibliography Index