The Living Moment

In the spirit of Lionel Trilling, Edmund Wilson, and Susan Sontag, the renowned literary critic Jeffrey Hart writes The Living Moment, a close reading of literature as it intersects with the political. Harts book is an even-handed guide for anyone toddling into the mists of the modernist moment, effortlessly moving between such modernist monuments as Eliots The Waste Land, Hemingways A Farewell to Arms, Manns Doctor Faustus, and Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby. Harts most stunning achievement is his brilliant inclusion of Marilynne Robinsons Gilead as a modernist text, for the way the novel teaches us to see more, to hear more, to feel more. Harts dazzling study is an examination of important works of literature as they explore the experience of living in a broken world with thought and sometimes with examples of resolve that possess permanent validity. The Living Moment is for anyone who is wearied by so much of todays trendy, narrow, and ideologically driven criticism.