Pat Barker, Double Vision

Jessica Gildersleeve (University of Southern Queensland)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kerry Myler (Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2003

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Pat Barker's tenth novel, Double Vision, is representative of her more recent novelistic concern with middle-class lives and current affairs. This novel's overriding themes of vision, memory, crime and war, and the role of the artist may be seen, however, to develop the broader purpose of Barker's writing thus far: that is, to address and attempt to understand social trauma. In this novel, Barker explores the ways in which global crimes such as the war in Bosnia and the war on terror inflect the reception of crime closer to home – assault, robbery, and delinquency. The novel may also be read as a metacommentary on the role of the artist: the ethics and aesthetics of the representation of violence. Barker uses metaphors of …

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1605 words

Citation: Gildersleeve, Jessica. "Double Vision". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 September 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13134, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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