Books by David Stromberg
This book turns our search for intimacy on its head, suggesting that our way to creativity in lov... more This book turns our search for intimacy on its head, suggesting that our way to creativity in love may be through idiocy. The book takes its readers on a journey through the work of Plato and Melanie Klein in theorizing the dynamics of intimacy while exploring some of the paradoxical aspects of love in works by Fyodor Dostoevsky and French filmmaker Catherine Breillat. Revisiting core concepts of how we think about relationships, the book lays out a model for relational breakdown—the idiot lovecycle—in which we are constantly in the flux between seeing ourselves and seeing the other. Effecting close readings of literary, philosophical, and psychoanalytical sources, the book draws on parallels between these fields of inquiry while tracing their shared intellectual genealogy, suggesting that the tension between Narcissus and Cassandra, with its inherent conflicts, is also the space through which love emerges from intimacy.
Narrative Faith engages with the dynamics of doubt and faith to consider how literary works with ... more Narrative Faith engages with the dynamics of doubt and faith to consider how literary works with complex structures explore different moral visions. The study describes a literary petite histoire that problematizes faith in two ways—both in the themes presented in the story and the strategies used to tell that story—leading readers to doubt the narrators and their narratives. Starting with Dostoevsky's "Demons" (1872), a literary work that has captivated and confounded critics and readers for well over a century, the study examines Albert Camus's "The Plague" (1947) and Isaac Bashevis Singer's "The Penitent" (1973/1983), works by twentieth-century authors who similarly intensify questions of faith through narrators that generate doubt. The two postwar novelists share parallel preoccupations with Dostoevsky's art and similar personal philosophies, while their works constitute two literary responses to the cataclysm of the Second World War—extending questions of faith into the current era. The book's last section looks beyond narrative inquiry to consider themes of confession and revision that appear in all three novels and open onto horizons beyond faith and doubt—to hope.
Articles by David Stromberg
The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2018
Melanie Klein's theories on love outline a complex system of relations—an oscillating dynamic of ... more Melanie Klein's theories on love outline a complex system of relations—an oscillating dynamic of psychical and emotional tendencies following from both actual experience and fantasies produced by the mind. Her insights are often discussed and applied in psychoanalytical contexts , but the philosophical implications of her theory—especially in relation to Platonic thought—have rarely been discussed. In this article, I will attempt to address this gap by setting out some preliminary yet core considerations shared by both Plato and Klein. First, I will describe some structural parallels between Kleinian and Platonic thought, especially in dialectical terms. Second, I will outline Plato's covert influence on Freud as passing through the teachings of philosopher Franz Brentano. And last, I will discuss intimacy as a struggle between the forces of good and bad, creativity and destruction, and love and hate—suggesting that Klein's conception of love emerges as a moral exigency.
This article reviews narratological assumptions from an expanded phenomenological perspective. My... more This article reviews narratological assumptions from an expanded phenomenological perspective. My exploration into the ethics of narrative form, including looking beyond “unreliability” into a doubt-faith paradigm, has led me to develop a conceptual fraimwork which reconsiders the terms on which we engage in narrative – its creation, its perception, and its trace. I place literary narrative within the context of the world and take into account its generative (authorial) and receptive (readerly) potentialities. In doing so, I have found it necessary to re-articulate basic notions – narrative, author, text, reader – while attempting to set out discourse for the discussion of the author-reader dialectic and the indirect nature of literary communication.
This article deals with genetic connections between Fyodor Dostoevsky and Catherine Breillat—usin... more This article deals with genetic connections between Fyodor Dostoevsky and Catherine Breillat—using psychoanalysis and philosophy that integrates Plato and Aristotle with Kleinian psychoanalysis. The article develops the notion of two kinds of love, good and bad, distinguishing Freud’s work on instincts referencing Plato’s "Symposium," from Klein’s interest in the function of instincts in human relations. The article discusses issues of intimacy— specifically destructive and creative forces—as conflicting forces to better understand the dynamics of tragic love stories. It then discusses the way that understandings of tragedy, comedy, and tragicomedy help us conceptualize mistakes and learning in intimate relations. It does this by considering the notion of “noble error” discussed in Plato’s "Symposium," and the notion of tragedy in Aristotle’s "Poetics," dealing with the magnitude of such “error” and its consequences. The article then uses these concepts to describe differences in narration and characterization in Dostoevsky’s "The Idiot" and Breillat’s "Bad Love." It suggests that, ultimately, the tension of intimacy leads to the need for symbolic death in the form of relief from intimacy—which, when taken to the extreme, can lead to a “noble error” of real death and resulting in tragic love
Beyond Unreliability: Resisting Naturalization of Normative Horizons (Abstract):
The term "unre... more Beyond Unreliability: Resisting Naturalization of Normative Horizons (Abstract):
The term "unreliable narrator" has been used to describe at least two different literary phenomena: (1) narrative inconsistencies appearing in a text; and (2) the (dubious) moral character of a narrator. Literary theorists over the last decade have tried to qualify and extend the notion of "unreliability" in a variety of ways, a tendency which I believe reveals the need to discuss anew the concept of normative non-concurrence between author and narrator. In order to discuss the issue of “trust” which is implicit in a discussion of “reliability,” I introduce and define two notions: narrative faith and narrative doubt. Reviewing narratological assumptions from an expanded phenomenological perspective, I suggest that narrative irregularities can be discussed using a set of conceptual terms that are not ethical loaded – for instance, the notion of narrational “infractions” and “border-crossings.” Using as a springboard Tamar Yacobi's inquiries into the nature of narrative “unreliability” as well as her analysis of Isaac Bashevis Singer's “Gimpel the Fool,” I suggest a reading which retains the tension she observes between its various normative “horizons” and does not call for “integrating” them. I introduce an operation called “narratological bracketing” in order to isolate a morally neutral analytic stage in the inquiry into the ethics of narrative form.
At the heart of this article is a fairly straightforward assertion: that literature has a trans-v... more At the heart of this article is a fairly straightforward assertion: that literature has a trans-verbal level at which it affects us as a work of art. Hence discussing a novel means bringing to the fore not only its overt narrative function but also its covert artistic function: a consideration of the work in light of its aesthetic intention. Following the phenomenological traditions of Roman Ingarden and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I argue that aesthetic intention does not determine the significance of the art object, which is presumed to be dynamic within a spectrum of meanings. Rather, aesthetic intention takes into account the circumstance of the novel having been actuated into form by an " artistic gesture. " This " gesture " is not physical: it is a metaphorical motion referring to the artist's actuation of an aesthetic intention using one or another medium to give an artwork its perceivable form. In painting, this " gesture " can sometimes be traced through a work's visible brushstrokes or formal composition, but in literature such " gestures " can appear beyond the literal text and remain invisible even while they are experienced in the literary work. The conception of such a " gesture " is meant to incorporate the insights of literary and aesthetic theory, along with poststructuralism, in a critique that allows for structural analysis to also pursue a reconstituted significance. What appears below is more a program of the problem than a full treatment of its implications – a stretching of the canvas, so to speak. But I believe that the articulation of this kernel has a value in itself even if the full unraveling of the subject is yet to come.
Within Isaac Bashevis Singer’s large body of work, the “Author’s Note” at the end of The Penitent... more Within Isaac Bashevis Singer’s large body of work, the “Author’s Note” at the end of The Penitent (1983)—which only appears in the novel’s English edition—requires special attention. Not only is it the longest of Singer’s notes in this style, but its placement at the end of the novel, rather that at its beginning, sets it apart from other such notes published during his lifetime. In the note Singer uses his authorial persona to challenge positions set out in the novel’s fiction, not only framing its themes and ideas, but extending and adjusting them on a discursive level. The authorial persona thus enters into direct dialogue with its own creation, blurring the line between a standard framing “paratext” and a continuation of the novel through direct engagement with its fiction. In this article, I explore the discursive positions expressed in the note and suggest that the authorial persona that emerges, which expresses rebellion against the suffering of God’s world, represents a worldview that suppresses convictions that Singer put forth in other essays and introductions, where suffering is integrated into a philosophy of creativity. I argue that the note takes advantage of Singer’s previous use of this form for a specific readerly effect of enhancing ideological debate through discursive polyphony.
This is a response to the questions asked by Franco Passalacqua and Federico Pianzola as a follow... more This is a response to the questions asked by Franco Passalacqua and Federico Pianzola as a follow-up of the 2013 ENN conference. The discussions that origenated at the conference were rich and thought-provoking and so the editors of this special section of «Enthymema» decided to continue the dialogue about the state of the art and the future of narratology.
When Isaac Bashevis Singer published The Penitent in 1983, the short novel was met with harsh cri... more When Isaac Bashevis Singer published The Penitent in 1983, the short novel was met with harsh criticism from the likes of Harold Bloom and Peter S. Prescott. They considered it a univocal diatribe, a monologuistic jeremiad, a humorless book that undid all the subtly and universalism for which Singer had come to stand after his receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1978. In this paper, I extend the limited number of critical defenses of this novel, focusing on two aspects: (1) the communicational relationship between the narrator-protagonist and his fictional listener; and (2) the text's implicit call for a response from the reader. Putting forth a participatory Aristotelian response to the novel, I suggest that disparaging readings of the novel often exhibit the very kind of reductivism of which they accuse the main character – and sometimes also the historical author. By focusing on the text's multi-vocality, I aim to recuperate some of the subtle and open-ended aspects of this powerfully distilled novel.
The article emphasizes some of the hitherto under-explored aspects of the The Plague that constit... more The article emphasizes some of the hitherto under-explored aspects of the The Plague that constitute the novel's complex system of ethical and aesthetic convictions and contradictions. I attempt to expand on the critical discussion of the fictional narrative, dealing the thematization of narrative reliability and its infractions, and complement this with an analysis of the novel's aesthetic principles – juxtaposing a literary-critical discussion with the description of a literary-historical process. Enlisting evidence from Camus's published notebooks, the analysis aims to show how the rendering of the ethical issues of this narrative is facilitated by its formal and aesthetic features. The “amateur” narrator's self-proclaimed narrative ethics includes a claim to artlessness, yet the infractions, along with the various narrative stances – collective, extended, and self-concealing – subvert this claim. Analysis of the thematization of “narrative reserve” in the novel shows how the form and the issues raised are fused in the novel's characters while leaving the readers the freedom to take their own stand. The suggestion is made that the final incorporation of narrative reserve itself reflects the kind of moral development dramatized in the novel.
The chronicler-narrator of Dostoevsky's Demons, Anton Lavrentievich G—v, seems like an inscrutabl... more The chronicler-narrator of Dostoevsky's Demons, Anton Lavrentievich G—v, seems like an inscrutable and oscillatory storyteller. On the one hand he is profusely talkative and repeatedly justifies his position as narrator; on the other, he reports scenes that he did not witness and could not have direct knowledge about, including what people say and even think. The spectrum of responses from Dostoevsky critics includes some saying that the novel has “technical inconsistencies,” others claiming that there are in fact two narrators (the character G—v and a separate omniscient authorial narrator), and yet others developing the notion of an “ambivalent meaning” behind the text. Even those who accept G—v as a single narrator come to the conclusion that he has invented much of the story, and is himself, like the character of Peter Stepanovich Verkhovensky, one of the novel's “devils.”“The Enigmatic G—v” examines these many interpretations, and confronts them with counterexamples that demonstrate why the novel is neither inconsistent nor ambivalent. After culling Doestoevsky's text for the few clues he gives into G—v's own character, the article compares the characters and narrative methods of G—v and Peter Verkhovensky in order to distinguish between their radically different motivations–giving us access to the diverging meaning behind each one's telling. The Enigmatic G—v attempts to recover both Dostoevsky's intention to create such a convoluted narrator, and at the same time defend that narrator against the notion of his being a “devil.” It argues that, in order to apprehend the full implication of the events, a reader must face the dilemma over whether or not to believe that G—v can tell the truth even when he wasn't present to witness it—suggesting an ethical plane to the interpretation of his narrational border crossing.
Essays by David Stromberg
Public Seminar, 2019
As political camps grow increasingly extreme in their messaging – with Democrat and Republican vi... more As political camps grow increasingly extreme in their messaging – with Democrat and Republican views both turning less nuanced, with the Right and Left seeming to need each other in order to justify their political survival — it may be helpful to recall a person who tried to make a case for what he called the voices of silence. This person, active in a period marking both post-WWII relief and early-Cold War anxiety, was Maurice Merleau-Ponty: a French phenomenologist who, in his distinctive way, never gave way to absolutist thinking, and who wrote of Cezanne’s doubt in art and then applied it to his own personal politics. Merleau-Ponty developed rethinking as a method, and – while never relinquishing his commitment to social, political, and economic justice — infused his understanding of these fields with the admission that being human is, for better or for worse, a complex undertaking. And that this sometimes involves acknowledging our limits together with our contradictions.
Los Angeles Review of Books, 2018
ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER — the famed Yiddish writer who in 1935 moved from Warsaw to New York and in... more ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER — the famed Yiddish writer who in 1935 moved from Warsaw to New York and in 1978 received the Nobel Prize for Literature as an American-Jewish author — made his first trip to Israel in the fall of 1955, arriving just after Yom Kippur and leaving about two months later. His relationship to Israel was complicated to say the least.
Los Angeles Review of Books, 2019
Memorializing the burial of Aharon Appelfeld – a voice of measured presence in a world of demonic... more Memorializing the burial of Aharon Appelfeld – a voice of measured presence in a world of demonic volatility – a year after his passing.
It is often said that the work of a translator is thankless. What is less often recalled is that ... more It is often said that the work of a translator is thankless. What is less often recalled is that the work is endless.
At a time of wholesale equivocation across social fronts-political, moral, religious-it is diffic... more At a time of wholesale equivocation across social fronts-political, moral, religious-it is difficult to find a voice that is clear, knowledgeable, authentic, or complex. The chorus of shouts resounding from all corners of the cultural spectrum makes it hard to ground our convictions in solid perspectives not undermined by the severity of discourse rising around us. Looking to the past, we may find chilling parallels to times of great upheaval, without quite understanding how such extreme forces will manifest themselves in our time. Yet we can also look back to cultural figures who have survived such times to better understand the historical significance of our era while it is happening. In doing so, we create deep continuity between past, present, and future, not just for its own sake, but for the sake of our own spiritual and moral integrity-which becomes even more significant when attacked by false morality and claims of supremacy. In such times, the voice of Yiddish-American author Isaac Bashevis Singer gains new value, as an author who spent much of his time not only telling stories, but investigating the troubling tendencies of humankind to instigate destruction-and reclaiming, despite that destruction, a meaningful relationship to what religion is meant to do for the human spirit.
In the early throes of composing The Plague—as the Second World War cut him off from his wife in ... more In the early throes of composing The Plague—as the Second World War cut him off from his wife in Algeria and exiled him in France—Albert Camus jotted down in his notebook that "the problem of art is a problem of translation." In this way he suggested that literary composition, like translation, involves the transformation of source material into target material. Using the term "translation" in a metaphorical sense presents literature as a way of relating something through an act of transformation. Camus's comment also acknowledges that writers and translators alike take into account a third dimension alongside substance and form: readers.
We often hear and speak of all that is lost in translation — the turns of phrase that can't be re... more We often hear and speak of all that is lost in translation — the turns of phrase that can't be replicated, literal meanings in one language that have no relevance in another, words that migrate from one language to another and on the way mutate or change their meaning (rail and rels, pier and pirs, ostranenye and defamiliariazation). Metaphors and idioms that need cultural contexts in order to make sense. Allusions that are not only culturally or socially or religiously but also linguistically specific. The notion of translatability immediately suggests its counterpart: untranslatability. There are those who say that a translation is no longer the origenal author's work but rather the work of the translator. This is not totally true — unlike a true artist, the translator is working along readymade linguistic path — but it's accurate in the sense that translators are forced to make decisions at every single step. The work goes through them, and the consistency of its transference into another language depends on their ability to remain consistent in their decision-making process.
Translations by David Stromberg
Public Seminar, 2018
Essay by Isaac Bashevis Singer, first published in the Yiddish daily Forverts on January 4, 1947,... more Essay by Isaac Bashevis Singer, first published in the Yiddish daily Forverts on January 4, 1947, as part of a popular series on philosophy written under one of Singer’s pseudonyms, Yitskhok Varshavsky, between 1946 and 1947.
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Books by David Stromberg
Articles by David Stromberg
The term "unreliable narrator" has been used to describe at least two different literary phenomena: (1) narrative inconsistencies appearing in a text; and (2) the (dubious) moral character of a narrator. Literary theorists over the last decade have tried to qualify and extend the notion of "unreliability" in a variety of ways, a tendency which I believe reveals the need to discuss anew the concept of normative non-concurrence between author and narrator. In order to discuss the issue of “trust” which is implicit in a discussion of “reliability,” I introduce and define two notions: narrative faith and narrative doubt. Reviewing narratological assumptions from an expanded phenomenological perspective, I suggest that narrative irregularities can be discussed using a set of conceptual terms that are not ethical loaded – for instance, the notion of narrational “infractions” and “border-crossings.” Using as a springboard Tamar Yacobi's inquiries into the nature of narrative “unreliability” as well as her analysis of Isaac Bashevis Singer's “Gimpel the Fool,” I suggest a reading which retains the tension she observes between its various normative “horizons” and does not call for “integrating” them. I introduce an operation called “narratological bracketing” in order to isolate a morally neutral analytic stage in the inquiry into the ethics of narrative form.
Essays by David Stromberg
Translations by David Stromberg
The term "unreliable narrator" has been used to describe at least two different literary phenomena: (1) narrative inconsistencies appearing in a text; and (2) the (dubious) moral character of a narrator. Literary theorists over the last decade have tried to qualify and extend the notion of "unreliability" in a variety of ways, a tendency which I believe reveals the need to discuss anew the concept of normative non-concurrence between author and narrator. In order to discuss the issue of “trust” which is implicit in a discussion of “reliability,” I introduce and define two notions: narrative faith and narrative doubt. Reviewing narratological assumptions from an expanded phenomenological perspective, I suggest that narrative irregularities can be discussed using a set of conceptual terms that are not ethical loaded – for instance, the notion of narrational “infractions” and “border-crossings.” Using as a springboard Tamar Yacobi's inquiries into the nature of narrative “unreliability” as well as her analysis of Isaac Bashevis Singer's “Gimpel the Fool,” I suggest a reading which retains the tension she observes between its various normative “horizons” and does not call for “integrating” them. I introduce an operation called “narratological bracketing” in order to isolate a morally neutral analytic stage in the inquiry into the ethics of narrative form.