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The article examines Astley's early satirical novels, asking the question, what do these early satires on gender relations share with those of her male contemporaries, and where do they differ? Are her suburbs and small towns vehicles for satire and ironies that blame women for the excesses and failures of modernity? Arguing that post-war modernism was a strongly masculinist culture which saw art defined by its distance to everyday life, popular values and middle-class consumerism, Sheridan concludes: 'To the extent that she shared this dominant masculinist aesthetic of the 1950s and 1960s, Astley's satirical stance involved her, inevitably, in a modernist rejection of this feminine modernity as innately trivial, distracting and undermining serious aesthetic, intellectual and spiritual values' (270).
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 8 Jan 2004 16:22:38
Subjects:
- Girl With a Monkey 1958 single work novel
- The Well Dressed Explorer 1962 single work novel
- A Descant for Gossips 1960 single work novel
- The Slow Natives 1965 single work novel
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