Rethinking mid-20th century radical novels that think positively about political suffering.

What is it about?

Drawing on theories of time, narrative, and affect, in this article I read Howard Fast’s Spartacus as one of a number of radical novels thinking positively about political suffering in an era marked heavily by critical dispassion and mass hysteria. I show how the radical novel reconstitutes what I call its “radical chronotope,” a kind of revolutionist time anticipating a future realm of freedom, and persuades its leftist readers to muster the strength to pick their way through an atmosphere hurtful, if not agonizing, for the left.

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