{"product_id":"wonder-confronts-certainty-russian-writers-on-the-timeless-questions-and-why-their-answers-matter-9780674299184","title":"Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn \u003ci\u003eAir Mail \u003c\/i\u003eEditor's Pick \u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003eSpectator \u003c\/i\u003eBook of the Year \u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"[A] masterly panorama of classic Russian literature and its hinterland of ideas.\"--\u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal \u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Wise and authoritative...As the best Russian literature teaches, the emancipation of the human will from all limits and restraints is the path of individual and collective perdition. We should all be grateful to Gary Saul Morson for drawing out that indispensable insight with such lucidity, erudition, and grace.\" --Daniel J. Mahoney, \u003ci\u003eNew Criterion \u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eWonder Confronts Certainty\u003c\/i\u003e is Gary Saul Morson's magnum opus.\" --Joseph Epstein, \u003ci\u003eWashington Free Beacon\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSince the age of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov, Russian literature has posed questions about good and evil, moral responsibility, and human freedom with a clarity and intensity found nowhere else. In this wide-ranging meditation, Gary Saul Morson delineates intellectual debates that have coursed through two centuries of Russian writing, as the greatest thinkers of the empire and then the Soviet Union enchanted readers with their idealism, philosophical insight, and revolutionary fervor. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMorson describes the Russian literary tradition as an argument between a radical intelligentsia that uncompromisingly followed ideology down the paths of revolution and violence, and writers who probed ever more deeply into the human condition. Exploring apologia for bloodshed, Morson adapts Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of the non-alibi--the idea that one cannot escape or displace responsibility for one's actions. And, throughout, Morson isolates a characteristic theme of Russian culture: how the aspiration to relieve profound suffering can lead to either heartfelt empathy or bloodthirsty tyranny. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhat emerges is a contest between unyielding dogmatism and open-minded dialogue, between heady certainty and a humble sense of wonder at the world's elusive complexity--a thought-provoking journey into inescapable questions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMorson, Gary Saul:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Gary Saul Morson is a prizewinning literary critic and the author of \u003ci\u003e\"Anna Karenina\" in Our Time\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNarrative and Freedom\u003c\/i\u003e, and, most recently, \u003ci\u003eMinds Wide Shut\u003c\/i\u003e, cowritten with Morton Schapiro. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Morson has written for the \u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eAmerican Scholar\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNew Criterion\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e. He is Lawrence B. Dumas Professor of the Arts and Humanities at Northwestern University, where for three decades he has taught an iconic course on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky that is frequently the university's most popular class.","brand":"Belknap Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51552902512914,"sku":"9780674299184","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_3d6ca97e-88a3-416c-b584-f4c3318241d3.jpg?v=1754911316","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/wonder-confronts-certainty-russian-writers-on-the-timeless-questions-and-why-their-answers-matter-9780674299184","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}