New Releases by Robert Alter

"This book collects book includes eleven pieces about Vladimir Nabokov. A common thread connects the articles, which is an underlying sense that Nabokov''s fiction resonantly addresses the realm beyond literature that we call, perhaps for want of a better term-and it is a word toward which he himself was dismissive-reality. . . . Nabokov was an existentially serious writer in the midst of being a playful one. He cared deeply about human relationships and their potential distortions, about love and the pain it often entails, and about what was happening in the larger historical theater. He firmly resisted attachment to political parties and trends. Yet he was acutely sensitive to the ways in which political ideologies could pervert or destroy human values and powerfully registered this awareness in several of his novels. His fiction poignantly conveys the burden of loss with which many must live-the loss of loved ones, of moral certainties, of homeland, of language and familiar cultural setting. In what the author has written on Nabokov, he has sought to give this large dimension of Nabokov''s novels and stories more attention than it has often received"--

Liberties Journal of Culture and Politics is devoted to educating the general public about the history, current trends, and possibilities of culture and politics.

From the recipient of the National Jewish Book Award for Lifetime Achievement, a "hugely entertaining and irreverent" (Adam Gopnik, New Yorker) account of the art of translating the Hebrew Bible into English In this brief book, award-winning biblical translator and acclaimed literary critic Robert Alter offers a personal and passionate account of what he learned about the art of Bible translation over the two decades he spent completing his own English version of the Hebrew Bible. Alter’s literary training gave him the advantage of seeing that a translation of the Bible can convey the text’s meaning only by trying to capture the powerful and subtle literary style of the biblical Hebrew, something the modern English versions don’t do justice to. The Bible’s style, Alter writes, “is not some sort of aesthetic embellishment of the ‘message’ of Scripture but the vital medium through which the biblical vision of God, human nature, history, politics, society, and moral value is conveyed.” And, as the translators of the King James Version knew, the authority of the Bible is inseparable from its literary authority. For these reasons, the Bible can be brought to life in English only by re-creating its literary virtuosity, and Alter discusses the principal aspects of style in the Hebrew Bible that any translator should try to reproduce: word choice, syntax, word play and sound play, rhythm, and dialogue. In the process, he provides an illuminating and accessible introduction to biblical style that also offers insights about the art of translation far beyond the Bible.

A landmark event: the complete Hebrew Bible in the award-winning translation that delivers the stunning literary power of the original. A masterpiece of deep learning and fine sensibility, Robert Alter’s translation of the Hebrew Bible, now complete, reanimates one of the formative works of our culture. Capturing its brilliantly compact poetry and finely wrought, purposeful prose, Alter renews the Old Testament as a source of literary power and spiritual inspiration. From the family frictions of Genesis and King David’s flawed humanity to the serene wisdom of Psalms and Job’s incendiary questioning of God’s ways, these magnificent works of world literature resonate with a startling immediacy. Featuring Alter’s generous commentary, which quietly alerts readers to the literary and historical dimensions of the text, this is the definitive edition of the Hebrew Bible.

“A pleasure to read. . . . Alter has given fresh life to some of the most beloved . . . books in our heritage.”—Philadelphia Inquirer The Song of Songs; Ruth; Esther; Jonah; and Daniel offer readers a range of pleasures not usually associated with the Bible. As distant in time from the Five Books of Moses as Updike is from Shakespeare, these Late Biblical books are innovative, entertaining literary works. Women often stand center stage. The Song of Songs is a celebration of young love, frankly sensuous, with no reference to God or covenant. It offers some of the most beautiful love poems of the ancient world. The story of Queen Esther’s shrewd triumph is also a secular entertainment, with clear traces of farce and sly sexual comedy. The character of Ruth embodies the virtues of loyalty, love, and charity in a harmonious world. Enigma replaces harmony in Daniel’s feverish night dreams. The apocalyptic strangeness of Daniel echoes in works from the New Testament’s Book of Revelations to the lyrics of Bob Dylan. And Jonah, the tale of a giant fish who, on God’s command, swallows the prophet and imprisons him in his dark wet innards for three days, ends with a question that lingers, unanswered, leaving the reader to ponder the many limitations of humankind.

Amid a conflict between gods and demons, Mulan is faced with a destiny- altering decision: will she allow the world to toil under eternal tyranny, or can she right the universe���s wrongs by making the ultimate sacrifice?

Chronicles the ancient history of Israel and its prophets, from Samson to Elijah.

Three decades ago, renowned literary expert Robert Alter radically expanded the horizons of biblical scholarship by recasting the Bible as not only a human creation but a work of literary art deserving studied criticism. In The Art of Biblical Poetry, his companion to the seminal The Art of Biblical Narrative, Alter takes his analysis beyond narrative craft to investigate the use of Hebrew poetry in the Bible. Updated with a new preface, myriad revisions, and passages from Alter''s own critically acclaimed biblical translations, The Art of Biblical Poetry is an indispensable tool for understanding the Bible and its poetry.

From celebrated translator of the Hebrew Bible Robert Alter, the "groundbreaking" (Los Angeles Times) book that explores the Bible as literature, a winner of the National Jewish Book Award. Renowned critic and translator Robert Alter''s The Art of Biblical Narrative has radically expanded our view of the Bible by recasting it as a work of literary art deserving studied criticism. In this seminal work, Alter describes how the Hebrew Bible''s many authors used innovative literary styles and devices such as parallelism, contrastive dialogue, and narrative tempo to tell one of the most revolutionary stories of all time: the revelation of a single God. In so doing, Alter shows, these writers reshaped not only history, but also the art of storytelling itself.

How the King James Bible has influenced the style of the American novel from Melville to Cormac McCarthy The simple yet grand language of the King James Bible has pervaded American culture from the beginning—and its powerful eloquence continues to be felt even today. In this book, acclaimed biblical translator and literary critic Robert Alter traces some of the fascinating ways that American novelists—from Melville, Hemingway, and Faulkner to Bellow, Marilynne Robinson, and Cormac McCarthy—have drawn on the rich stylistic resources of the canonical English Bible to fashion their own strongly resonant styles and distinctive visions of reality. Showing the radically different manners in which the words, idioms, syntax, and cadences of this Bible are woven into Moby-Dick, Absalom, Absalom!, The Sun Also Rises, Seize the Day, Gilead, and The Road, Alter reveals the wide variety of stylistic and imaginative possibilities that American novelists have found in Scripture. At the same time, Alter demonstrates the importance of looking closely at the style of literary works, making the case that style is not merely an aesthetic phenomenon but is the very medium through which writers conceive their worlds.

"An award-winning author and professor adds a new volume to his series of translations and commentary on the Hebrew Bible, focusing on the rational moral order described in Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. "

"A masterpiece of contemporary Bible translation and commentary."—Los Angeles Times Book Review, Best Books of 1999 Acclaimed for its masterful new translation and insightful commentary, The David Story is a fresh, vivid rendition of one of the great works in Western literature. Robert Alter''s brilliant translation gives us David, the beautiful, musical hero who slays Goliath and, through his struggles with Saul, advances to the kingship of Israel. But this David is also fully human: an ambitious, calculating man who navigates his life''s course with a flawed moral vision. The consequences for him, his family, and his nation are tragic and bloody. Historical personage and full-blooded imagining, David is the creation of a literary artist comparable to the Shakespeare of the history plays.

"A modern classic....Thrilling and constantly illuminating."—Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World Through a distinguished career of critical scholarship and translation, Robert Alter has equipped us to read the Hebrew Bible as a powerful, cohesive work of literature. In this landmark work, Alter''s masterly translation and probing commentary combine to give contemporary readers the definitive edition of The Five Books. Winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Translation and the Koret Jewish Book Award for Translation, a Newsweek Top 15 Book, Los Angeles Times Favorite Book, and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book.

In Imagined Cities, Robert Alter traces the arc of literary development triggered by the runaway growth of urban centers from the early nineteenth century through the first two decades of the twentieth. As new technologies and arrangements of public and private space changed the ways people experienced time and space, the urban panorama became less coherent—a metropolis defying traditional representation and definition, a vast jumble of shifting fragments and glimpses—and writers were compelled to create new methods for conveying the experience of the city.In a series of subtle and convincing interpretations of novels by Flaubert, Dickens, Bely, Woolf, Joyce, and Kafka, Alter reveals the ways the city entered the literary imagination. He shows how writers of diverse imaginative temperaments developed innovative techniques to represent shifts in modern consciousness. Writers sought more than a journalistic representation of city living, he argues, and to convey meaningfully the reality of the metropolis, the city had to be re-created or reimagined. His book probes the literary response to changing realities of the period and contributes significantly to our understanding of the history of the Western imagination.

"You think you know these texts... until you read Alter, who reignites their beauty in bracing and unexpected ways." --Malcolm Jones, Newsweek. A cornerstone of the scriptural canon, The Book of Psalms has been a source of solace and joy for countless readers over millennia. This timeless poetry is beautifully wrought by a scholar whose translation of The Five Books of Moses was hailed as a "godsend" by Seamus Heaney and a "masterpiece" by Robert Fagles. Alter''s The Book of Psalms captures the simplicity, the physicality, and the coiled rhythmic power of the Hebrew, restoring the remarkable eloquence of these ancient poems. His learned and insightful commentary illuminates the obscurities of the text.

Poésie et expérience de Dieu ont toujours été liées. Elles le sont de manière éminente dans la Bible, qui recourt à la poésie pour dire ce qui, de Dieu et de l''homme, ne peut se dire que poétiquement. Alors que le récit est sans pareil pour mettre en scène leur rencontre, c''est au poème biblique qu''il appartient d''exprimer l''intensité - l''inouï - de cette rencontre. Dans les Psaumes et les Proverbes comme dans le livre de job, chez les prophètes comme dans le Cantique des Cantiques, les rédacteurs de la Bible se sont ainsi faits poètes pour notre plus grand bonheur. Les poèmes de la Bible font cependant jouer des réflexes de forme et de sens qui ne sont pas toujours immédiatement les nôtres. Pour nous initier à cet art poétique, Robert Alter nous ramène à ce qui en est le ressort secret : le parallélisme sémantique. Avec sagacité, l''auteur révèle le dynamisme du " combien plus " qui anime la ligne versifiée et se déploie de ligne en ligne. En nous faisant lire de plus près des pages fascinantes, il passe en revue tous les genres poétiques illustrés par la Bible prières, proverbes et énigmes, oracles et chants érotiques. Pour le croyant comme pour le lecteur attaché à la révélation de la poésie, des perspectives nouvelles s''ouvrent - sur le texte sacré et sur notre expérience personnelle.

C''était il y a plus de quinze ans. Deux grands professeurs de littérature, Robert Alter à Berkeley (Californie) et Frank Kermode à Cambridge (Angleterre), décidaient de réunir les meilleurs spécialistes de littérature biblique des deux côtés de l''Atlantique pour proposer une encyclopédie de la Bible qui allait révolutionner la lecture et la réception contemporaines des textes sacrés. À partir de ces nouvelles études, on ne lirait plus tout à fait la Bible de la même façon... Salué comme un événement aux Etats-Unis, et traduit dans plusieurs langues, The Literary Guide to the Bible est enfin traduit et adapté en français. Conçue comme un guide de lecture, livre après livre, de la Genèse à l''Apocalypse, cette encyclopédie rend aux textes bibliques leur incomparable richesse littéraire et permet à tous de prendre conscience de l''originalité de ces chefs-d''œuvre de littérature qui ont fait de la Bible une source d''inspiration inépuisable de notre civilisation. Après l''étude argumentée de chaque livre biblique, elle propose des analyses inédites de la poésie hébraïque, des inspirations littéraires de la Bible dans les littératures de l''Antiquité, des midrash, de l''art des évangiles, de l''établissement du canon, etc. Cette édition française, entièrement revisitée et actualisée, est enrichie d''un chapitre sur l''histoire des traductions françaises de la Bible et d''une bibliographie francophone.

Robert Alter met en évidence les liens qui unissent trois témoins majeurs de notre modernité : Franz Kafka, Walter Benjamin et Gershom Scholem, trois théoriciens du doute, no man''s land qui sépare religions traditionnelles et culture séculière moderne. Scholem, le sioniste convaincu et historien du mysticisme juif, aussi bien que Benjamin, le critique marxiste, se réfèrent tous deux à la pensée de Kafka, explorateur de t''aliénation la plus radicale. Le sens inné de la complexité spirituelle de l''écrivain tchèque a inspiré les deux auteurs confrontés aux simplifications meurtrières de la pensée totalitaire. Le premier ange convoqué est celui de Kafka qui relate dans son journal (25 juin 1914) un rêve mettant en scène un ange se métamorphosant sous ses yeux en image peinte de la proue d''un navire. En 1940, Benjamin, consacre la neuvième de ses Thèses sur la philosophie de l''histoire à la description d''un ange peint par Paul Klee, qu''il voit comme précipité dans le futur par la tornade du progrès. Benjamin lèguera cette toile à Scholem. Une toile qui ornera le salon de ce dernier jusqu''en 1989. La clarté prophétique de l''exposé de Robert Alter consacré à ces trois grands maîtres contemporains suffit à battre en brèche l''idée selon laquelle une rupture brutale avec la tradition serait la condition sine qua non d''une accession à la modernité.

Alter explores the ways in which a range of iconoclastic 20th century authors have put to use the stories, language, and imagery found in the Hebrew Bible. Includes attention on Franz Kafka''s "Amerika" and James Joyce''s "Ulysses".

An essential tool for overcoming life''s obstacles - large and small - this new book by psychotherapists Robert and Jane Alter reveals how to heal the psyche and the soul

L''ouvrage de Robert Alter vient recréer l''imagination littéraire des lecteurs de la Bible que nous sommes. Trésor de la foi des croyants, la Bible hébraïque est aussi l''un des chefs-d''œuvre de la littérature narrative de tous les temps. Encore faut-il que nous apprenions à lire les récits bibliques dans l''art qui leur est propre. En faisant parler les textes avec perspicacité, et en usant du contrepoint d''Homère, de Shakespeare, de Flaubert ou de James, Robert Alter met en lumière les voies et les moyens de la narration biblique : la centralité du dialogue, l''art de la variation dans la répétition, l''usage des scènes types, la réserve du narrateur omniscient, le recours aux sources distinctes dans la multiplication des points de vue. Ces techniques littéraires, montre l''auteur, représentent autant d''options théologiques : il y va, dans cet art de raconter, de la révolution du monothéisme d''Israël, où le dessein du Dieu unique se conjugue aux tours et aux détours de la liberté humaine. Tant d''enjeux dans ces histoires bien composées - elles agrandissent comme à la loupe les trajets de nos libertés devant celle de Dieu -, mais aussi un tel bonheur à lire ! L''ouvrage de Robert Alter est contagieux à cet égard.

A translation of Genesis, which attempts to recover the meanings of the ancient Hebrew and convey them in modern English prose. It is accompanied by a commentary and annotations, and aims to illuminate the original work without any touch of the fake antique.

"Here is the Genesis for our generation and beyond. An occasion for praise, and perennial gratitude as well". -- Robert Fagles