Not a Simple Story: Love and Politics in a Modern Hebrew Novel - Softcover

Green, Sharon M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0739104748 ISBN 13: 9780739104743

Publisher: Lexington Books, 2002

Synopsis

Not a Simple Story presents the modern Hebrew writer Shmuel Yosef Agnon in a new light? as an artist cum thinker whose novels and short stories manifest a deep understanding of the social and political crisis at the heart of modern Jewish life. Based on a close reading of Agnon's seminal novel A Simple Story, the book argues that Agnon was essentially a Jewish nationalist and secular modernist whose critical portrait of modern Jewish life seeks not to demean Jews but to hold them to a higher standard. By demonstrating all that Jewish society lacks, Agnon implicitly shows what it needs for it to thrive? a return to such lost notions as Jewish self-respect, heroism, and romantic love. Sharon Green's scholarly critique of this modern Hebrew classic offers students of Jewish studies a unique opportunity to penetrate the literary enigma Agnon has represented for almost a century.

About this title

Synopsis:

This is a critique of the modern Hebrew writer Shmuel Yosef Agnon's seminal novel "A Simple Story". It argues that Agnon was essentially a Jewish nationalist and secular modernist whose critical portrait of modern Jewish life seeks not to demean Jews but to hold them to a higher standard. This book proposes that, by demonstrating all that Jewish society lacks, Agnon implicitly shows what it needs for it to thrive: a return to such lost notions as Jewish self-respect, heroism, and romantic love. In this study, Sharon Green presents Agnon (somewhat of a literary enigma) in a new light - as an artist-cum-thinker whose novels and short stories manifest a deep understanding of the social and political crisis at the heart of modern Jewish life.

About the Author:

Sharon M. Green teaches modern Jewish literature at the University of Toronto.

About this edition

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0739104748
• ISBN 13: 9780739104743
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 180