Weak Plots in the Modernist Novel: A Review of Stephen Kern’s The Modernist Novel: A Critical Introduction

Stephen Kern’s The Modernist Novel: A Critical Introduction provides a comprehensive overview of European and American novels of the period. The book is organized around a discussion of ten “master narratives” that modern novelists reworked or subverted. Kern argues the artistic narrative was the only one of these that represented a site of unchallenged value. Kern’s most original contribution to modernist studies is his discussion of a perplexing formal feature found in many modernist novels: weak plots that defy causality and focus on seemingly trivial events. His analysis also offers speculations about how the modernist novel is a site for reflecting on the writing of human history.