Download or read book Twilight of the Avant-garde written by Nathaniel Robert Deyo and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ABSTRACT: This paper seeks to position the work of Nathanael West with regards to its relationship with the aesthetic ideologies of the modernist avant-garde. By looking specifically at the way in which his work both borrows from and breaks with the aesthetic practices of his modernist forebears, the paper works to argue that West's literary output is of central importance for understanding both the collapse and ultimate failure of the modernist project as well as the emergence of what is typically known as "postmodernism."