Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure

Through a close reading of five major novelists -- Cervantes, Stendhal, Flaubert, Proust, and Dostoyevsky -- René Girard attempts to define the essence of a certain type of novel which he calls the novel of mediated desire. The study extends beyond the scope of literature into the psychology of much of our contemporary scene, including fashion, advertising, and propaganda techniques. In considering such aspects in relation to his central theme, Girard goes beyond the domain of pure aesthetics and offers an interpretation of some basic cultural problems of our time.