Help My Unbelief

by Geert Lernout

Book Overview

From the very beginning James Joyce's readers have considered him as a Catholic or an anti-Catholic writer, and in recent years the tendency has been to recuperate him for an alternative and decidedly liberal form of Catholicism. However, a careful study of Joyce's published and unpublished writings reveals that throughout his career as a writer he rejected the church in which he had grown up. As a result, Geert Lernout argues that it is misleading to divorce his work from that particular context, which was so important to his decision to become a writer in the first place. Arguing that Joyce's unbelief is critical for a fuller understanding of his work, Lernout takes his title from Ulysses, "I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief. That is, help me to believe or help me to unbelieve?", itself a quote from Mark 9: 24. This incisive study will be of interest to all readers of Joyce and to anyone interested in the relationship between religion and literature.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1441194746
• ISBN13: 9781441194749
• Release Date: April 2010
• Publisher: Continuum
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.1"