(2000)
In Novel Theology, Darren J. N. Middleton engages a conversation between literature and theology by using the narrative fiction of Nikos Kazantzakis and the process metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead. Consequently, this book reveals the common post-Darwinian philosophy that shapes Kazantzakis's and Whitehead's understanding of an evolving, panentheistic God. It acknowledges that the exercise of sustaining this conversation at times becomes demanding because literature and theology use dissimilar textual modes and forms of discourse. Literature and theology constantly (de)construct each other, Middleton maintains. Suggesting that this (de)constructive assignment is one that cannot but be “in process itself,” he returns to it throughout his study.
Christianity and literature 51.2 (2002)
“Novel Theology is certainly the most important contribution to Kazantzakis’s religious, literary, and philosophical work in the past decade. Furthermore, it is a highly penetrating contribution to the relationship between religion and literature. Middleton’s attempt not only to rehabilitate Kazantzakis in the eyes of religious thinkers but also to do so in the light of postmodern literary criticism is highly successful, and scholars of Kazantzakis should be enormously grateful to Middleton’s astute contribution to this inspiring, but so often misunderstood, giant of Greek letters.”