Towards a Better Life: Being a Series of Epistles, or Declamations: A Novel

by Kenneth Burke

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520046382
• ISBN13: 9780520046382
• Release Date: June 1982
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Can't believe it's out of print

This is a great novel. Very strange.

Very talky novel by a wonderful literary critic.

If you're a fan of Kenneth Burke, and you should be, you might still hate his one and only novel. It's addicted to rhetoric. And it won't apologize. Far as I can tell, I'm one of maybe 2 or 3 people in the world who loved this novel. There's an incredible scene where the main character, who has run away from his wife and family, returns years later in the dark. He's seen her, but doesn't know what's happened. In the dark, he feels the nameplate over the doorbell. Too many letters for his name...too few for her maiden name. She's remarried. So he moves on. Much of the book is about the language...and it's circa 1930s, and very "moment" oriented. It's very intellectualized, but somehow manages to be moving anyhow.