Nitza Ben-Dov. Agnon's art of Indirection : Uncovering latent content in the
fiction of S. Y. Agnon / by Nitza Ben-Dov. --
Leiden : New York : Köln : E.J.
Brill, 1993. 167 p. -- (Brill's Series in Jewish studies ; vol. VII)
Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1888-1970), winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966 and the undisputed master of the Hebrew novel, still remains largely an unknown or even misunderstood figure. Agnon's innovation was to construct an intricate dialectic between Hebrew tradition and the modern predicament, thereby producing a very distinctive mode of modernist narrative. Agnon deployed a technique of rich allusiveness drawn from traditional Hebrew lore and language using free-association, especially by means of imaginative dream-sequences designed to unveil the ambivalent but fateful meanings in the apparently inconsequential events and thoughts which determine the lives of his characters.
This book explores the methods and materials of Agnon's art so as to provide the English reader with insight into his unique fictional world, and it proposes a fresh approach to the reading of Agnon which will also be of interest to those familiar with his work and the crucial literature on it.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One: Vague Hopes or Cherchez la Femme
Chapter Two: Homeless Dreams
Chapter Three: The Homecoming dream
Chapter Four: A cloaked Woman with a Piece of Cake
Chapter Five: Interminable Song
Chapter Six: The Old Woman--Benign Mentor or Evil Genius?
