Impressions of the ISHS 2014 Conference: James Morrow

James Morrow
Novelist

I think our premiere convention proved a ringing affirmation of heretical literature in all its glorious paradoxicality. Valuable poems, plays, stories, and novels embrace simultaneously the discursive and the dramatic; they cannot be domesticated. During the Friday afternoon roundtable I introduced the image of Ivan Karamazov “returning his ticket”—his unwillingness to accept the tortured child as the price of a harmonious universe—and I was pleased when James Wood, in his keynote address that evening, reminded us of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s anxiety that the vivid character of Ivan might eclipse Father Zosima in the reader’s mind. Dostoyevsky’s fear was not unfounded. His novel revels in ambiguity. And so the conversation continues…

[Webmaster’s note: This post is part of a series offering impressions of, and reflections on, the 2014 ISHS Conference by participating Society members.]