文章基本信息

标题：Riders in the Chariot : A Tale for our Times
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作者：Bernadette Brennan
期刊名称：Campos - Revista de Antropologia Social
印刷版ISSN：1519-5538
出版年度：2008
卷号：7
页码：32-45
出版社：Universidade Federal do Paraná, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Antropologia Social
摘要：This article rereads Patrick White's Riders in the Chariot against some of the past criticism of the text. It argues that the text has much to say about the contemporary politics of fear operating in Australia and demonstrates that many of the historical readings of White as an elitist, alienated Modernist cannot be sustained. The contemporary relevance and force of this novel arises from a double movement: the beauty of White’s prose operates continually to allow us to perceive the “infinite in everything” but it also helps us understand the absolutely ordinary fears and insecurities of the suburban Australian consciousness. Through the ordinary everydayness of his Australian characters (other than the riders) we see all too clearly how the ignorance and prejudice of a very small few have the ability to snowball with catastrophic consequences. Himmelfarb, in the face of horror, turned away from literature believing that intellectual reasoning had failed humanity. Today it is the fear of intellectual reasoning that has the potential to make us all less than we have the potential to be.
关键词：patrick white;modernism;elites