{"product_id":"comedy-of-redemption-ralph-wood-9780268007867","title":"Comedy of Redemption: Christian Faith and Comic Vision in Four American Novelists","description":"\u003cp\u003eFocusing on specific theological issues in the work of Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, John Updike, and Peter De Vries, \u003ci\u003eThe Comedy of Redemption\u003c\/i\u003e boldly unites Christian faith in dialogue with comic fiction. Ralph C. Wood demonstrates that all four writers are comic artists in the theological sense of the term, although their fiction echoes the laughter of the Gospel in radically different ways.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWood explores tragedy and comedy in terms of theological as well as literary categories. After a brief discussion of the tragic vision as it bears on the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, he offers an interpretation of Karl Barth as a theologian of the Christian comedy of redemption. Barth's theology is seen as disclosing what is profoundly comic in God's reconciliation of the world unto himself in Jesus Christ. Barth thus becomes-against the popular view that he is a despiser of culture--the basis for a positive theological estimate of contemporary literature. His theology also serves to reclaim the eschatological gladness of Christian faith amid the gathering despair of the late modern age.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn light of these claims, Wood then offers literary interpretations of O'Connor, Percy, Updike, and De Vries. In a variety of ways, and not without ambiguities, there are reverberations of the Gospel to be heard within these four contemporary American writers. Sometimes against their own willful purpose, the rumor of revelation resounds within their fiction. Such literary analogues of the Gospel serve to demonstrate that the ear of faith, having first heard the redeeming comedy in scripture and the church, can also hear its parabolic echo in some of the best comic fiction written in our time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Ralph C. Wood\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0268007861\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780268007867\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Notre Dame Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/30\/1988\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 326\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.13lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.38h x 6.50w x 0.94d","brand":"Ralph C. Wood","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44056715198719,"sku":"9780268007867","price":38.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_86efe9bb-7312-4b47-bf32-de21141a0173.jpg?v=1685042854","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/comedy-of-redemption-ralph-wood-9780268007867","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}