Dirk van Hulle proves with admirable clarity that textual genesis has become the new science of literature, and that it works both ways, from scrutinized manuscripts to original re-readings of canonical works, and from their authors’ progression in language to the laws of evolution governing creativity. His convincing remapping of modernism, from Darwin to Beckett via Conrad, Proust, Woolf, Joyce, Kafka and Flann O’Brien, definitely splices textual genetics with cognitive studies, thus rendering an invaluable service to literary studies in general.
Jean-Michel Rabaté, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Pennsylvania, USA
This learned, detailed and fascinating study of 'creative undoing' mines the works of Darwin, Joyce, Woolf, and Beckett to explore the processes by which revisions, deletions and substitutions shape the work of art. It will be of interest to a broad range of readers, specialist and non-specialist alike.
Dame Gillian Beer, DBE, King Edward VII Professor of English Literature and President, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, UK