In the course of a single extensive interview, this novel recounts the colorful life of a wealthy, eccentric Italian composer through multiple layers of unreality. As Massimo recalls what his master, Tancredo Pavone, told him about his life, he often repeats Pavone’s outrageous opinions on everything from the current state of the world to the inner life of each musical note. Eventually, it becomes comically clear that not only does Pavone not always distinguish between memory and imagination, but also that Massimo does not always understand what it is he is repeating. A moving portrait of a close bond between two people from utterly different social spheres, this narrative is an insightful look into the world of a composer and the process of artistic creation

Asking how it is possible to feel at home in the world, given that the world is independent of and indifferent to our wishes, this text draws on books, films and cultural history to argue that we can feel comfortable in the world and in relationships with others only if we value touch over sight

The quality of today’s literary writing arouses the strongest opinions. For novelist and critic Gabriel Josipovici, the contemporary novel in English is profoundly disappointing — a poor relation of its groundbreaking Modernist forebears. This agile and passionate book asks why. Modernism, Josipovici suggests, is only superficially a reaction to industrialization or a revolution in diction and form; essentially, it is art coming to consciousness of its own limits and responsibilities. And its origins are to be sought not in 1850 or 1800, but in the early 1500s, with the crisis of society and perception that also led to the rise of Protestantism. With sophistication and persuasiveness, Josipovici charts some of Modernism’s key stages, from Dürer, Rabelais, and Cervantes to the present, bringing together a rich array of artists, musicians, and writers both familiar and unexpected — including Beckett, Borges, Friedrich, Cézanne, Stevens, Robbe-Grillet, Beethoven, and Wordsworth. He concludes with a stinging attack on the current literary scene in Britain and America, which raises questions about not only national taste, but contemporary culture itself. Gabriel Josipovici has spent a lifetime writing, and writing about other writers. What Ever Happened to Modernism? is a strident call to arms, and a tour de force of literary, artistic, and philosophical explication that will stimulate anyone interested in art in the twentieth century and today