Focusing on a significant topic, this book serves as a vital resource for scholars interested in Russian history and literature. It offers pioneering insights and authoritative analysis, making it an essential addition to academic discussions in these fields.
An Intercontexual Reading
Exploring the interplay between Holocaust and gulag literature, Leona Toker analyzes how each genre illuminates the other through the lens of historical repression by Nazi and Soviet regimes. She examines works by notable authors such as Varlam Shalamov, Primo Levi, and Elie Wiesel, focusing on their narrative techniques and the personal experiences documented within. Toker argues that fictionalized narratives serve as historical testimony, revealing how cultural contexts can obscure references over time, ultimately enriching the understanding of testimony in confronting evil.
Leona Toker, a Professor of English at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, explores the intersection of ethics and narrative structure in her latest work. Focusing on the concept of cultural remission, she delves into how fiction can reflect and respond to ethical considerations, offering insights into the moral dimensions of storytelling. Her scholarly contributions aim to enrich the understanding of narrative form and its implications in literature.
The book explores the connection between narrative form and moral vision, emphasizing the significance of cultural remissions, such as the carnivalesque, which challenge societal norms and boundaries. Leona Toker proposes a method to analyze how formal narrative features influence ethical perceptions, arguing that these elements can transform readers' beliefs and values. Through in-depth analyses of works by authors like Fielding, Austen, and Dickens, Toker illustrates the ethical implications of fiction's aesthetics, drawing on theories from Bakhtin and de Certeau.
Using novels by Fielding, Austen, Dickens, Conrad, Forster, and Faulkner, Toker demonstrates how the withholding of information affects readers' attitudes, stimulates their reassessment, and leads to a self-critical reorientation -- and how such manipulation of attention has specific ethical and aesthetic significance.