Soft City
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Soft City | |
| Author | Jonathan Raban |
|---|---|
| Publisher | The Harvill Press |
| Publication date | 1974 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-525-20661-2 |
Soft City is the first book written by Jonathan Raban, and published by The Harvill Press in 1974.
A vivid, often funny portrait of metropolitan life, Soft City is part reportage, part incisive thesis, part intimate autobiography, and a much-quoted classic of the literature of the city and urban culture. In an age when the big city is becoming less popular than ever, this is a passionate and imaginative defense of city life, its "unique plasticity, its privacy and freedom."
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
Soft City records one man's attempt to plot a course through the urban labyrinth. Holding up a revealing mirror to the modern city, it is used as the locale for a demanding and expressive personal drama.
Meticulously researched, Soft City is an insider's guide to the stresses and strains of city life. Flicking between many cities, but primarily London and New York, Raban shows the true horror and, to an extent, joy of life in a modern metropolis. The reasons why people flock to cities, why some stay and why some leave are some of the many topics covered. The book takes the reader on a journey into memory and explains how one's own "soft city" is built from memories of the streets one has actually visited or streets one imagines; those one has loved and are gone. It also describes how we negotiate our own "soft city," how "my city" is different from "yours" and "everyone else's." How we also build associations with places, corners, alleyways and how this builds a familiarity without which we fail to survive our visit to the city. Raban goes on to describe this mind construction as a kind of stage set that we create and in which we play out our part; some of us succeed at this game but many of us suffer from a sense of dislocation and lack of community. All cities are theatres; all cities have their stories so how do you play your own individual part?[1]
Jonathan Raban has made his own comments on his first novel:
| “ | In 1968–1969, my last year at the University of East Anglia, I taught an interesting——at least to me——course on The City (1870–1910), alongside a social historian, Geoffrey Searle. We had readings in literature, history, politics, with the occasional dash of sociology, and students could count the course as a credit in either history or literature, whichever best suited them. The two teachers had a lot of fun back-and-forthing—my literary take on Geoff's historical documents, his historical take on my novels and poems. "Interdisciplinary" was a good word in those days, and I had that course at the back of my head when I sat down to write Soft City a couple of years later. I wasn't self-consciously trying to construct a hybrid form for the book, I was just reflecting the way I thought, in a sloppy interdisciplinary way—being an academic one day, a book critic the next, drawing from my own experience the next, and so on.[2]. | ” |
[edit] Source
 |
This Article needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of the article are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please include more appropriate citations from reliable sources, or discuss the issue on the talk page. This article has been tagged since May 2007. |
 |
This article about a non-fiction book is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
