Dostoyevsky In The Face Of Death: Or Language Haunted By Sex (European Perspectives: A Series In Social Thought And Cultural Criticism)

In her new book Kristeva explores the surprising modernity of the tormented and visionary Russian author. Wherever I went and whatever I did, I pushed life to the limit, a limit I've spent my whole life trying to surpass," he wrote to his friend, the poet Apollon Maykov, in 1867. And sustained by his faith in the Orthodox doctrine of the Word incarnate, he did just that, betting on the power of language and narrative with the polyphonic novel, and defying a world - with or without God - of nihilism, and its alter ego, fundamentalism. The intense nature of his characters, ranging from pitiful monstrosity to "insect-like" insignificance, prefigure the carceral mold of the totalitarian universe that would emerge with the Holocaust and the Gulag. Julia Kristeva presents a compelling portrait of Dostoyevsky from the unprecedented angle of language, examining the literary giant and his oeuvre within the context of the 21st century where, at long last, "anything is possible." This is a very insightful book, and provides us with an intensely personal engagement with Dostoyevsky's works. In addition to language, she focuses on Dostoyevsky's sexuality and on his relation to religion and theology. There is no other book that brings both themes together"--

• | Author: Julia Kristeva
• | Publisher: Columbia University Press
• | Publication Date: Dec 19, 2023
• | Number of Pages: 344 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 0231210507
• | ISBN-13: 9780231210508