Unknowing: the work of modernist fiction

Leaping: Kierkegaard's Fear and trembling.

Pt.1. Knowings: "Sapere aude!" - the West dares to know. Genealogy of realism: an enlightenment narrative in five stages ; Anatomy of realism: coming to know, from Defoe to Dostoevsky.

Pt.2. Unknowing: the work of modernist fiction. Plotting modernism: Freud ; Uncanny space: Flaubert to Beckett ; Unbound time: Proust, Kafka, Faulkner ; Subject and/as other: Kafka, Proust, Faulkner.

Pt.3. Beyond knowing: postmodern and postcolonial flights from gravity. Adventures in hyperspace ; Urban nightmare and city dreams: Rilke and Calvino ; Passage and passing: Forster and Rushdie ; Arrest and release: Faulkner, García Márquez, Morrison.

Conclusion: Acknowledging - modernism's weak messianic power.