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Narrative Faith

Dostoevsky, Camus, and Singer

David Stromberg

Narrative Faith engages with the dynamics of doubt and faith to consider how literary works with complex structures explore different moral visions. The study describes a literary petite histoire that problematizes faith in two ways—both in the themes presented in the story, and the strategies used to tell that story—leading readers to doubt the narrators and their narratives. Starting with Dostoevsky’s Demons (1872), a literary work that has captivated and confounded critics and readers for well over a century, the study examines Albert Camus’s The Plague (1947) and Isaac Bashevis Singer’s The Penitent (1973/83), works by twentieth-century authors who similarly intensify questions of faith through narrators that generate doubt. The two postwar novelists share parallel preoccupations with Dostoevsky’s art and similar personal philosophies, while their works constitute two literary responses to the cataclysm of the Second World War—extending questions of faith into the current era. The book’s last section looks beyond narrative inquiry to consider themes of confession and revision that appear in all three novels and open onto horizons beyond faith and doubt—to hope.

University Press Copublishing Division / University of Delaware Press

Pages: 226 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-61149-664-2 • Hardback • October 2017 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-61149-665-9 • eBook • October 2017 • $105.50 • (£82.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory, Literary Criticism / Subjects & Themes / Religion, Philosophy / Religious

Narrative Faith

Dostoevsky, Camus, and Singer

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Narrative Faith engages with the dynamics of doubt and faith to consider how literary works with complex structures explore different moral visions. The study describes a literary petite histoire that problematizes faith in two ways—both in the themes presented in the story, and the strategies used to tell that story—leading readers to doubt the narrators and their narratives. Starting with Dostoevsky’s Demons (1872), a literary work that has captivated and confounded critics and readers for well over a century, the study examines Albert Camus’s The Plague (1947) and Isaac Bashevis Singer’s The Penitent (1973/83), works by twentieth-century authors who similarly intensify questions of faith through narrators that generate doubt. The two postwar novelists share parallel preoccupations with Dostoevsky’s art and similar personal philosophies, while their works constitute two literary responses to the cataclysm of the Second World War—extending questions of faith into the current era. The book’s last section looks beyond narrative inquiry to consider themes of confession and revision that appear in all three novels and open onto horizons beyond faith and doubt—to hope.

Details

University Press Copublishing Division / University of Delaware Press

Pages: 226 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-61149-664-2 • Hardback • October 2017 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-61149-665-9 • eBook • October 2017 • $105.50 • (£82.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory, Literary Criticism / Subjects & Themes / Religion, Philosophy / Religious

Author

David Stromberg is a postdoctoral scholar of literary studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: Narrative Doubt: Modulation and Tension as Storytelling Strategies
Chapter One: The Devoted G––v: Reconstruction and Rehabilitation in Dostoevsky's Demons
Chapter Two: The Reserved Rieux: Love and Anguish in Camus's The Plague
Chapter Three: The Refracting Shapiro: Rebellion and Creativity in Singer's The Penitent
Chapter Four: Narrative Faith: Structural Complexity and Moral Vision
Instead of a Conclusion: Confession, Revision, Hope
Bibliography
Index

Narrative Faith

Dostoevsky, Camus, and Singer

David Stromberg

Narrative Faith

Dostoevsky, Camus, and Singer

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