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Kafka
A Biography
RONALD HAYMAN.
That Kafka's work is so intricately interwoven
with his life underscores the need for an authoritative biography. Yet
there has been no full-scale biography of Kafka since Max Brod's 1937
memoir, which was last updated in 1954. Ronald Hayman, author of
many critical biographies, most recently the acclaimed
Nietzsche,
met
members of Kafka's family and tracked down unpublished materials in
Berlin, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv. Vienna, and Prague. His narrative treats
Kafka's creative development as an integral part of his life and throws
new light on his fiction.
384
pp. , iIlus. $19.95
Familiar Mysteries
The Truth in Myth
SHIRLEY LOWRY,
Los Angeles Valley College. Why do we find
recurring patterns and symbols in myths that are centuries-or conti–
nents- apart? Drawing upon tales ranging from the ancient Middle East
to modem North America, Lowry shows how myths "reflect and
dramatize ordinary experience."
Familiar Mysteries
explains how we
developed a symbolic language and what such symbols as blood,
milk,
sunlight and monsters mean; how heroes from Moses and Jesus to
Charlemagne and Superman ' relate to one another; and how myths
reconcile us to life's limitations.
352
pp., iIlus. $17.95
Agon
Towards a Theory of Revisionism
HAROLD BLOOM,
Yale University. Bloom expands upon the con–
troversial and highly personal theory of revisionism he presented in
The
Anxiety of Influence
and
A Map of Misreading.
Revisionism, viewed by
Bloom as a contest of opposing artistic and moral drives, is examined in
relation to Romanticism, to the American poetic tradition, to Freud, and
to what Bloom calls "the American religion of competitiveness." The
book also discusses Gnosticism, fantasy and the sublime, the role of
poetry in society, and cultural issues confronting contemporary Ameri–
can Jewry.
320 pp. $19.95
The Confidence Man
in
American Literature
GARY LINDBERG,
University of New Hampshire. Is the con man a
covert American culture hero? Yes, says Gary Lindberg. In this broad
cultural study, he shows how Americans have always been fascinated by
the paradox of promise and sham, skepticism and connivance offered by
the con man in roles ranging from the self-made man and survivor to the
jack-of-all-trades and gadgeteer. He discusses the ways in which such
writers as Melville, Poe, Twain, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Heller, Kesey, and
Barth have used the con man to reveal major continuities and ambiva–
lences in American life.
384
pp. $19.95
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Oxford University Press
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200 Madison Avenue, NewYork, NewYork 10016
