Synopses & Reviews
Some of the most well-known and well-respected cultural figures of our time enter into intimate and illuminating conversation about their personal beliefs, about belief itself, about religion, and about God.
Antonio Monda is a disarming, rigorous interviewer, asking the most difficult questions (he often begins an interview point blank: “Do you believe in God?”) that lead to the most wide-ranging conversations. An ardent believer himself, Monda talks both with atheists (asked what she feels when she meets a believer, Grace Paley replies: “I respect his thinking and his beliefs, but at the same time I think hes deluded”) and other believers, their discussion ranging from personal images of God (Michael Cunningham sees God as a black woman, Derek Walcott as a wise old white man with a beard) to religions place in American culture, from the afterlife to the concepts of good and evil, from fundamentalism to the Bible. And almost without fail, the conversations turn to questions of art and literature. Toni Morrison discusses Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner, Richard Ford invokes Wallace Stevens, and David Lynch draws attention to the religious aspects of Bu-uel, Fellini...and Harold Ramis's Groundhog Day.
Informal, revealing, unexpected, Do You Believe? is a captivating and thought-provoking meditation how faith, in all its facets, remains profoundly relevant for and in our culture.
Synopsis
Informal, revealing, unexpected, this book is a captivating and thought-provoking meditation how faith, in all its facets, remains profoundly relevant for and in our culture. "When the Italian writer Antonio Monda sat down to talk religion with American cultural leaders... he went straight for the big questions." --O, The Oprah Magazine
Some of the most well-known and well-respected cultural figures of our time enter into intimate and illuminating conversation about their personal beliefs, about belief itself, about religion, and about God.
Antonio Monda is a disarming, rigorous interviewer, asking the most difficult questions (he often begins an interview point blank: "Do you believe in God?") that lead to the most wide-ranging conversations. An ardent believer himself, Monda talks both with atheists (asked what she feels when she meets a believer, Grace Paley replies: "I respect his thinking and his beliefs, but at the same time I think he's deluded") and other believers, their discussion ranging from personal images of God (Michael Cunningham sees God as a black woman, Derek Walcott as a wise old white man with a beard) to religion's place in American culture, from the afterlife to the concepts of good and evil, from fundamentalism to the Bible. And almost without fail, the conversations turn to questions of art and literature. Toni Morrison discusses Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner, Richard Ford invokes Wallace Stevens, and David Lynch draws attention to the religious aspects of Bu-uel, Fellini...and Harold Ramis's Groundhog Day.
About the Author
Antonio Monda teaches in the Film and Television Department of New York University. An award winning filmmaker, he is author of A Journey into American Cinema, and editor/author of The Hidden God.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Evidence of Things Unseen
Paul Auster: A Mocking and Unfathomable Mystery
Saul Bellow: I Believe in God but I Don't Bug Him
Michael Cunningham: We Are All God's Children
Nathan Englander: Whoever Wrote the Bible Is God
Jane Fonda: Christ Was the First Feminist
Richard Ford: I Believe in the Redemptiveness of Art
Paula Fox: God Is the Name of Something I Don't Understand
Johnathan Frazen: Reality Is an Illusion
Spike Lee: I No Longer Felt Anything in Church
Daniel Libeskind: We Believe the Moment We See
David Lynch: Good and Evil Are Within Us
Toni Morrison: The Search is More Important Than the Conclusion
Grace Paley: Death Is the End of Everything
Salman Rushdie: I Believe in a Mortal Soul
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.: I Am an Agnostic
Martin Scorsese: God Is Not a Torturer
Derek Walcott: I Believe That I Believe
Elie Wiesel: I Have a Wounded Faith
Acknowledgments