“Hanna Meretoja has written an important, even essential, study of postwar French literary history. […] Her study is a model of sophisticated interdisciplinarity and of how literary theoretical methodology and intellectual historical methodology can deepen critical awareness. Indeed, her study embodies that very dialogical narrativity that is the great achievement of the postwar crisis and return of storytelling.”
by Charles R. Sullivan in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: Vol. 41: 1 – Full Review
“Meretoja’s book develops a philosophical approach to literature which sees fiction as dynamically bound up with philosophy, not as a medium for expressing pre-existing positions but as one of the ways in which existing ideas are explored and tested. This understanding of the literary text as performing thought in its very literary form makes possible the exchange which the book negotiates between the texts and a wide range of contemporary thinkers. The philosophical and literary acumen shown here is deeply impressive. This is high stakes literary criticism. Secondary writing on literature can sometimes be clever but trivial; no one can make that accusation at this study. This is an original, innovative and scholarly piece of work that constitutes a major contribution to literary criticism, narrative studies and the humanities more broadly.”
by Colin Davis, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
‘Hanna Meretoja’s exploration of new trends in contemporary European literature is of very high quality indeed. This book represents a significant contribution to the studies of twentieth-century French literature and narrative theory.’
Simon Kemp, University of Oxford, UK
“Meretoja’s book has evident relevance and usefulness for any professional reader internationally, in the field of literature and philosophy, in particular, ethics. It synthesises from a clear, critical, and engaged perspective an impressive amount of philosophical research on narrativity, subjectivity, and their ethical implications. It also shows in an exemplary way how to combine textual analysis, literary history and philosophical/ethical discussion.”
Liesbeth Korthals Altes, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
“Hanna Meretoja’s book is an admirably rich and thorough revisitation of a key theoretical and historical issue in twentieth-century French culture: the changing attitude towards narrativity or ‘storytelling’. […] Meretoja unravels the intricate context of related ontological, epistemological, historical, and ethical issues underlying each work’s perception of what narrative is (for) and what it should do.”
Erika Fülöp, French Studies 70:1, 2016, 128-129/ Full Review
Hanna Meretoja’s research focuses on what she terms ‘the crisis of storytelling’ and the ‘complex existential relevance of narrative for our being in the world’ (p. 2). Fundamental to her work is the social and moral chaos that remained after the Second World War and especially the Holocaust: the sense that there could no longer be any predictable future, and hitherto belief in historical progress had become impossible. […] Such a brief summary does scant justice to a book which, to quote one of its prepublication readers, demonstrates how fiction is ‘dynamically bound up with philosophy, not as a medium for expressing pre-existing positions but as one of the ways in which existing ideas are explored and contested’. This is undoubtedly true and is the book’s main strength.”
John Flower, Journal of European Studies 46:1, 2016: 75-76
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Hanna Meretoja 