Beyond the story : American literary fiction and the limits of materialism / Christina Bieber Lake.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lake, Christina Bieber, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--20th century--History and criticism.

American literature.

Materialism in literature.

Religion and literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xi, 198 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, [2019]

Summary:

"Beyond the Story: American Literary Fiction and the Limits of Materialism argues that theology is crucial to understanding the power of contemporary American stories. By drawing on the theories of M. M. Bakhtin, Christian personalism, and contemporary phenomenology, Lake argues that literary fiction activates an irreducibly personal intersubjectivity between author, reader, and characters. Stories depend on a dignity-granting valuation of the particular lives of ordinary people, which is best described as an act of love that mirrors the love of the divine. Through original readings of the fiction of Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, Lydia Davis, Toni Morrison, and others, Lake enters into a dialogue with postsecular theory and cognitive literary studies to reveal the limits of sociobiology's approach to culture. The result is a book that will remind readers how storytelling continually reaffirms the transcendent value of human beings in an inherently personal cosmos"-- Provided by publisher.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0268106258

9780268106256

OCLC:

1090284913