In this Book
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, Walker Percy, and the Age of Suicide
- Book
- 2019
- Published by: The Catholic University of America Press
summary
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Walker Percy, and the Age of Suicide is a study of the phenomenon of suicide in modern and post-modern society as represented in the major fictional works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Walker Percy. In his study, suicide is understood in both a literal and spiritual sense as referring to both the actual suicides in their works and to the broader social malaise of spiritual suicide, or despair. In the 19th century Dostoevsky called suicide “the terrible question of our age”. For his part, Percy understood 20th century Western culture as “suicidal” in both its social, political and military behavior and in the deeper sense that its citizenry had suffered an ontological “loss of self” or “deformation” of being. Likewise, Thomas Merton called the 20th century an “age of suicide”.
Table of Contents
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- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-xii
- Introduction
- pp. 1-24
- Part 1. Fyodor Dostoevsky
- 2. Notes on Notes from Underground
- pp. 40-56
- 4. The Idiot: Christ without Christ
- pp. 73-95
- 5. Demons: A Cautionary Tale
- pp. 96-116
- Part 2. Walker Percy
- 7. Walker Percy and the Age of Suicide
- pp. 139-153
- 8. The Moviegoer: Skirting the Abyss
- pp. 154-175
- 9. The Last Gentleman: Homeward Bound
- pp. 176-195
- 10. Lancelot: What Do Survivors Do?
- pp. 196-220
- 11. The Second Coming: Finding Home
- pp. 221-247
- Epilogue: Beyond Suicide
- pp. 279-284
- Selected Bibliography
- pp. 285-290
Additional Information
ISBN
9780813231280
Related ISBN(s)
9780813231273
MARC Record
OCLC
1088436701
Pages
312
Launched on MUSE
2019-03-27
Language
English
Open Access
No
Copyright
2019