SOURCE: "Passion Spins the Plot: Agnon's 'Forevermore'," in Tradition and Trauma: Studies in the Fiction of S. J. Agnon, edited by David Patterson and Glenda Abramson, Westview Press, 1994, pp. 9-26.

In the following essay, Sokoloff asserts that the plot of Forevermore (Ad Olam), which features "repetition, circularity, episodic fragmentation of narrative line, and disconnected events," is intended by Agnon to lend irony to the ostensible progress made by the protagonist.

Agnon's Forevermore (Ad 'olam), a short story riddled with ironies and contradictions, features as its protagonist a scholar who has single-mindedly devoted twenty years to researching the history of an ancient city, Gumlidata. Having completed his work and finally found a publisher for his study, Adiel Amzeh suddenly discovers the existence of a previously unknown manuscript on his topic. Held in the possession of a nearby leper colony, this document beckons Amzeh, who yearns to clarify a puzzling...