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Free of Inhibitions and Full of Pleasure: The Image of Europe in the Works of James Salter
Císlerová, Magdalena ; Delbos, Stephan (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
This thesis is concerned with the analysis of the image of Europe in the novels of James Salter, namely A Sport and a Pastime (1967), Light Years (1975), Solo Faces (1979) and All That Is (2013), while also taking into account Salter's memoir Burning the Days (1997). In Salter's fiction and non-fiction, Europe is presented as a place of freedom, culture, tradition, romance and possibilities, to which all of Salter's main characters - and Salter himself - are drawn at some stage in their lives, often at turning points. The journey to Europe serves various functions: it provides education and enables release from the domestic environment through a metaphorical conquest of the Continent. This thesis explores the motivations of Salter's characters for the journey, their expectations, as well as their actual experience, and the impact of their experience in Europe within the framework of the tradition of American writing in Europe, particularly modernism, with whose adherents Salter shares not only a similar notion of Europe, and particularly Paris as the cultural capital, but also a similar outlook on life, and a number of important themes and stylistic features. In positioning Salter as a belated modernist this thesis draws on Pascale Casanova's theory of the workings of the literary world expressed...
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