Lines of Desire

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This is a highly original analysis of the novels of one of the most fascinating figures of the twentieth-century European avant-garde. In Lines of Desire Hanjo Berressem examines the novels of renowned Polish author Witold Gombrowicz in light of both contemporary literary theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis.Beginning with the relationship between theory and text, Berressem delineates the elective affinity between Gombrowicz and Lacan. He outlines Gombrowicz's views on philosophy, structuralism, subjectivity, language, and psychoanalysis, demonstrates their close correspondence to Lacanian theory, and establishes the theoretical foundation that will inform subsequent textual analyses. Beressem addresses in particular Gombrowicz's use of the motifs of the face, his deconstruction of Kantian dialectics, the topic of sexual obsession, and the "tragedy" of consciousness.With its plot summaries and structural "blueprints" of the novels discussed (Ferdydurke, Trans-Atlantyk, Pornografia, Cosmos, and Possession) Berressem's study is a fascinating analysis of Gombrowicz's novelistic oeuvre and of his ambivalent relation to the avant-garde.