Postmodern Strategies in Alasdair Gray’s «Lanark: A Life in 4 Books»

by Luis De Juan

This book shows how Alasdair Gray’s first novel, A Life in 4 Books , shares some of the thematic and formal concerns of postmodernist literature. The analysis is preceded by an introductory chapter which relates Gray to both the English and the Scottish literary traditions. Next, the author focuses on Lanark and explores the way the novel offers a representation of society in terms of ontological instability and dystopia as well as the implications to be drawn from its experimental nature.

338 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2003