Popular Fiction and Social Change

by Christopher Pawling (Editor)

Book by

246 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very insightful collection of essays covering SF, fantasy, romance, etc. in the context of social changes from the 1930s - 1970s. Highlights for me were Martin Jordin's analysis of Wolfbane by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth, a stock sci-fi novel from the '50s that nevertheless opens up some interesting ideas about post-war corporatism, and Rosalind Brunt's reading of extremely prolific romance writer Barbara Cartland, whose work belies her personal beliefs in spirituality, virginity and romantic love to reveal marriage as a commodity exchange ("the romantic writer as inadvertent feminist"). The only dated section (the book is from 1984) is maybe Pawling's introduction where he fairly stridently makes the case for taking popular fiction seriously as an area for study, a debate which I hope is settled by now...

[Cloud · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some essays are extremely interesting, the 1st, the 2nd, and the 4th were very useful to me for my research.