The Irresponsible Self by James Wood
On Laughter and the Novel
The book argues that the modern novel often cultivates a comic, ironic 'irresponsibility'—a refusal of straightforward moral judgment—through laughter, detachment, and narrative indirection; this stance both reveals and protects the novelistic self by exposing inner contradictions while avoiding moral closure. It reads key works to show how irony, mockery, and the comic can produce ethical insight by making characters' self-deceptions visible, and it examines the persistent tension between sympathetic realism and mocking distance. Ultimately the book defends the aesthetic and moral importance of this ambivalent mode, claiming that literature’s license for laughter and evasiveness can deepen our understanding of human consciousness and moral complexity.
- Published
- 2004
- Nationality
- British
- Length
- Unknown
- Pages
- Unknown
- Original Language
- English
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- Alternate Titles
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