Reviews for The Fate of the Dead: Studies on the Jewish and Christian Apocalypses

The average rating for The Fate of the Dead: Studies on the Jewish and Christian Apocalypses based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-02-04 00:00:00 Eric Gauthier I guess this is more of a three star book, but everyone else is giving it 5 stars, so I've adjusted downwards accordingly. Palmer's basic point, which could have been expressed in an essay rather than a book, is that narrative theory of a structuralist persuasion doesn't pay enough attention to the way that most people read most narratives: they/we treat characters and narrators as *people*, not as functions or some similar technical place-holder. He makes a number of nice minor points about speech category narrative theory (of the 'this is free indirect, this is direct, this is...' type) and the way that it doesn't take into account human actions. All this means that a large number of texts don't get analyzed by narratologists, i.e., anything that isn't obsessed with a character's thoughts. His writing is clear, which is quite an achievement for someone who writes about narrative theory. Anyway, so far so good. Then, for no apparent reason, he launches into a discussion of cognitive science in the broadest possible sense, stretching from Searle through Dennett to an MIT encyclopedia. According to Palmer, understanding these theories helps us to understand how we come to treat characters as if they had minds. Sadly, this is not true. Everything he says of substance about the process of reading and the structure of literary texts can be said without any reference to this body of work; it can be said better with reference to less recent, less trendy and less technologically savvy philosophers and scientists; and it can be said best by just talking about books. When he does discuss texts, he gets nothing from them: he just points out passages and gives us the thumbs up: "See? That's a mind!" Now if he was just interested in reading some cognitive science, that'd be fine. Sadly, he buys into it uncritically and whole-heartedly. Why is this a problem? Well, consider the difference between human minds of the middle ages and our own times. What does cognitive science have to say about these differences? Nothing. It's an experimental science. You can't do experiments on medieval minds. That's not much of a problem, since only elitist snobs* read medieval literature these days. But what about Victorian era minds? What about pre-war modern minds? What about the differences between fifties minds and contemporary minds? In fact, unless you assume that human forms of mind never change (a wild and crazy assumption, let's be honest), you can only analyze texts of the present era using cognitive science. But Palmer doesn't limit himself to that, and quite rightly, since that'd be really silly. But this brings his whole approach under a bit of a cloud. Perhaps he'd be better off ditching the cognitive science and doing some reading in history? So unless you're in thrall to the idea that only by using structuralism can you understand narrative, you'll probably come out of this book thinking "great. I kind of knew that. He puts it nicely I guess. But what the heck was all that nonsense about 'frames'?" And then get back to reading Trollope. As a slight addendum, Palmer also claims that 'all' narrative is a process of understanding fictional minds. As a friend of mine points out, that's not even remotely true, unless you think narrative started with Defoe, ended with Joyce, and that it's all realistic. *: note, I am just such a snob.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-12-24 00:00:00 Christopher Moore Liked it in places, but not in others. Once again, I don't know how many times this will make or how many will be in the future, Oscar Wilde didn't die of syphilis ! He died of cerebral meningitis! The person who suggested he died of syphilis did have to retract that from the next edition in his book, Richard Ellmann. The doctors had written it as cerebral meningitis and his grandson Merlin Holland is in agreement. I know the book I am reading is over ten years old, but I had hoped even for a book written in 1997 we would be beyond this as readers and writers! For that mention alone of erroneous error I would have left the book flat. However, Leonard Wolf does write well. Although for the most part it is one of those books that is a dissection. Dissect another book for all that it is worth, or not, or percived in the imagination. I always find difficulty reading books that are about a dissection of another, it's like art connoisseur who can make a long critical judgement on one painting! That may go to show I'm no intellectual. In fact when I read Bram Stoker's Dracula I didn't pick up on any shadowy homoerotic references or any hint of women's sexuality. To me it was a story about a vampire that did have a curious prefrence for women but a lot of books in that period were like that. Of course if there were shadowy homoerotic references I don't imagine anyone in the Victorian Era missed it! These are the same people that called Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray preverse and his supposed refrences (which I can't find really) were no more obvious that Bram Stoker's. If Leonard Wolf is to believed then Bram Stoker's were more obvious and a lot more explicate! So how this book didn't get Bram Stoker into trouble is a mystery to me! That's the hypocrisy of the Victorian Age and in a lot of ways in our own period. Even with his own words Leonard Wolf is saying how we view the more disturbing side of our natures-or evil-is no different then how we viewed that side a hundred years ago and exactly the same in how we view our sexuality in print and in more private daily lives. To read a "gothic" book is to innocently explore that secret nature that no one else but ourselves dares to look at. But to read a real life "gothic" account we would automatically known the difference and be suitably outraged. Would we? In the company of others yes many would vocally complain of a real life story of murder and mayhem but what would that person really feel? The persons that purposefully harm and kill others are not just the occasional odd ball that suddenly appears as if brought up especially from the bowels of hell. The person could be at work with the non murderers and rapists or could be a next door neighbour that would out loud complain about the "evil" found in a newspaper but inside themself maybe whispering a different kind of reply. How far would a person take being titulated by a jolly good horror story/movie and not want a similar kind of titulation outside of that fantasy world? Thanks to technology indeed a person can go a lot further with computer games and as Leonard Wolf pointed out enough times one can achieve a sort of sexual horror story supposedly confined to the bedroom with a willing partner or two or three or...It's easy enough all a person apparently as to do is say I want to and hang everything and everyone else I don't care about them! How easy that is to reside in an entirely selfish existence where one's own life and importance is the only thing that counts in this world. Those people may be as yet right. But I'm not going to conform to that. Another glaring omission is the other two vampire movies Bela Lugosi was in was Mark of the Vampire (1936) and The Return of the Vampire (1944), yes we shouldn't advertise the movies he was most typecast in-monsters and other like minded evil doers-however, without Bela Lugosi's version of the vampire on the big screen I don't think anyone would turn to the book as many times as they have since it's first publication and I don't think we would have all the vampire movies stories that we have (for better or for worse!)and his Dracula may not be to the letter of Bram Stoker's Dracula but at least Bela Lugosi brought a man that was both surreal and real enough to believe in. For all the hamminess of the 1931 movie Bela Lugosi should have the gifted credit of bring Dracula into our daily lives as someone or something to believe in. I also agree that Dracula is a blessing and a curse.