Is the Bible one book or a collection of writings? If it is a book, what kind of book is it and does it stand as a coherent piece of literature? Building on the recently renewed interest in biblical narrative associated with Erich Auerbach, Northrop Frye, and Robert Alter, Gabriel Josipovici here sets out to answer these and other equally fascinating questions. His beautifully written book constitutes a rethinking of the nature of the Bible and our relation to it.Josipovici begins by examining the radically different conceptions of unity that underlie the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. He then analyses what he sees as the Bible's three defining characteristics: its rhythm, manifest in the opening sentence of Genesis and evident throughout both testaments; its attitude to speech; and its conception of character. As his discussion unfolds, another theme emerges: that of conflicts - between views of time and of human character, as well as between views of books as documents to be deciphered or as stories to be lived with and repeated. He also offers insights into such diverse and interesting subjects as the role of memory and genealogy in the Hebrew scriptures, the radical nature of St Paul's conception of human character, and the different responses of Kierkegaard and Thomas Mann to the stories of Genesis. Developing his argument through close textual analysis, Josipovici draws on his deep knowledge and appreciation of medieval and modern art and literature and on his personal understanding of the possibilities of narrative. His book not only lifts literary-biblical criticism to a new level but also makes the Bible accessible again to our secular age.

"William Shakespeare's Hamlet is probably the best-known and most commented upon work of literature in Western culture. The paradox is that it is at once utterly familiar and strangely elusive--very like our own selves, argues Gabriel Josipovici in this stimulating and original study. Moreover, our desire to master this elusiveness, to "pluck the heart out of its mystery," as Hamlet himself says, precisely mirrors what is going on in the play; and what Shakespeare's play demonstrates is that to conceive human character (and works of art) in this way is profoundly misguided. Rather than rushing to conclusions or setting out a theory of what Hamlet is "about," therefore, we should read and watch patiently and openly, allowing the play to unfold before us in its own time and trying to see each moment in the context of the whole. Josipovici's valuable book is thus an exercise in analysis which puts the physical experience of watching and reading at the heart of the critical process--at once a practical introduction to a great and much-loved play and a sophisticated intervention in some of the key questions of theory and aesthetics of our time"--

Book by Josipovici, Gabriel

Is it possible to create art freely today and yet produce works that are more than merely decorative or commercial? asks Gabriel Josipovici in this wide-ranging book. The suspicion that art is both frivolous and deceptive has a relatively short history, he explains, and he turns to works created in "cultures of trust"-Homer, the Hebrew Bible, Dante, and Shakespeare-in order to understand Romantic suspicion.

Two central themes run through this new collection of authoritative and undogmatic essays: the Jewish experience and that of the work of art as a toy to be used for dreaming and playing rather than as a window to the world. The collection includes three essays on the Bible, as well as pieces devoted to Twelfth Night, Rembrandt's self-portraits, Tristram Shandy, Kafka's stories and aphorisms, Borges, Kierkegaard, and painter Andrez Jackowski. The title essay examines the relationship of the artists' works and their ideas, and the book concludes with personal meditations on memory, the Holocaust, Jewishness, and being a writer-teacher.

Taking its name from Bach's Goldberg Variations, as well as inspiration from its formal structure, this work hybridizes breezy philosophical meditation and fragment-based novel. Most of the diffused story takes place in nineteenth-century England, where a Jewish writer by the name of Goldberg is commissioned by an incessantly thoughtful insomniac to create a story each day to be told that night, hopefully thus assuaging the man's sleeplessness.

The quality of today's literary writing arouses the strongest opinions. For novelist and critic Gabriel Josipovici, the contemporary novel in English is profoundly disappointing--a poor relation of its groundbreaking Modernist forebears. This agile and passionate book asks why. Modernism, Josipovici suggests, is only superficially a reaction to industrialization of a revolution in diction and form; essentially, it is art arriving at a consciousness of its own limits and responsibilities. And its origins are to be sought not in 1850 or even 1800, but in the early 1500s, with the crisis of society and perception that also led to the rise of Protestantism. With sophistication and persuasiveness, Josipovici charts some of Modernism's key stages, from Dürer, Rabelais, and Cervantes to the present, bringing together a rich array of artists, musicians, and writers both familiar and unexpected--including Beckett, Borges, Friedrich, Cézanne, Stevens, Robbe-Grillet, Beethoven, and Wordsworth. He concludes with a stinging attack on the current literary scene in Britain and America, which raises questions not only about national taste, but about contemporary culture itself. Gabriel Josipovici has spent a lifetime writing and writing about other writers. This book is a strident call to arms and a tour de force of literary, artistic, and philosophical explication that will stimulate anyone interested in art in the twentieth century and today.