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

(Paperback)

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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.

Author Bio

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