May 8, 2009

Reading the Inner Lives of Biblical Characters

To the Editor:

Tod Linafelt seems to think that in my recent book, How Fiction Works, I insist on reading the Bible as a form dominated by religious concerns "to the exclusion of any literary artfulness" ("The Bible's Literary Merits," The Chronicle Review, April 10). I have, of course, written often about the Bible's literary art (essays about the King James Version, about biblical techniques in Saul Bellow's work, and about Robert Alter's translations).

In the section from How