Overview
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.Author Biography
Gabriel Josipovici is a research professor at the University of Sussex–England. He is the author of three volumes of short stories and more than a dozen novels, including The Big Glass, Contre-Jour, In the Fertile Land, In a Hotel Garden, Moo Pak, and Steps, and several books of criticism, including The Book of God, On Trust, and The World and the Book.
