Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Review
Author(s): Brian Evenson
Review by: Brian Evenson
Source: World Literature Today, Vol. 77, No. 3/4 (Oct. - Dec., 2003), pp. 157-158
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40158340
Accessed: 10-01-2016 15:09 UTC

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 Together, these companion volumes re-
flect the current status of the research and
preservation activities of the Recovering
the U.S. Hispanic LiteraryHeritage project
and of general editor Kanellos's own
groundbreaking contributions to the field
both as a scholar and as the publisher of
Arte Publico Press. The influential objec-
tive championed by Kanellos and the Re-
covery Project- "[to] make accessible the
literaturecreated by Hispanics in all areas
that came to be part of the United States,
from the colonial period up to i960"-
promises to garner even more support and
practicalapplication in the classroom now
that the texts in question are readily avail-
able in two affordablevolumes. Given the
essential differences between Herenciaand
En otra voz, though, those who prefer not
to read literaturein translationwill proba-
bly want to have both, thus ensuring direct
access to not only the original works but
also the most comprehensive representa-
tion of this particularbody of literature.
Catharine E. Wall
University of California, Riverside
M
J. Hillis Miller. On Literature. New York.
Routledge. 2002. xii + 164 pages. $12.95.
isbn 0-415-26125-2
This very enjoyable and interesting book
is part of a series from Routledge bearing
the title "Thinkingin Action" that promis-
es to "take philosophy to its public." Each
book "by a major international philoso-
pher or thinker" is said to be not only
"clearly and accessibly written" but even
"punchy, short and stimulating." Derrida
and Zizek are among J. Hillis Miller's fel-
low contributorsto the series. The book is
generally accessible, and Miller's voice is
personal and direct, sometimes informal
and casual. He acknowledges, for exam-
ple, that the "virtualworld" in a novel like
FinnegansWakeis "pretty weird." On the
other hand words like "proleptic," "cate-
chresis,"and even "anacluthonicshift" are
used more or less without definition or
explanation.
Miller's discussion is very wide-ranging
and consistently thought-provoking. This
is a major work by an important author
that engages the broadest and deepest
- O
questions regarding literature what it is,
what it does, how it does it, and why it
matters. On the first page, Miller insists
both that "the end of literatureis at hand"
and that "literature is a feature of any
human culture at any time and place."
This content downloaded from 146.189.194.69 on Sun, 10 Jan 2016 15:09:42 UTC
This is the first of many key paradoxes or
contradictions employed by Miller in the
book. Near the end, for example, dis-
cussing how we should read, Miller says
we should read fast, giving ourselves over
to the book and its imaginary world en-
tirely, falling under its spell, as those of us
did who loved books as a child, but we
should also read slow, lento, holding the
text at arm's length as we puzzle out and
reflect upon and savor how it achieves its
fabulous effects. Miller terms these contra-
dictory instructions about how to read
"the aporia of reading."
Miller employs several differenttheoreti-
cal schemas in the course of his reflections
on literature,among them speech-act theo-
ry after Austin, arguing that literature is
primarily performative rather than consta-
tive or referential.In terms of the influential
traditionalimage whereby literatureis said
to mirrorthe world, Miller grants it partial
validity, but he insists that we must also see
the text as a mirror more like the looking
glass in Alice in Wonderland,one through
which we pass to enter enchanted realms.
Another key argument is that litera-
ture's enchantment and its attendant rap-
ture are connected to transgressive vio-
lence. He cites Nietzsche in support of the
idea that such superabundant rapture is at
the heart of the tragic feeling in all art. That
is in turn associated, says Miller, with
"death, sexuality, and the irrationalside of
language." The strangeness that results
from the presence of such irruptive vio-
lence is the source of the sui generis nature
of each literary work. It is often tamed by
courses in literature or literary theory.
Miller argues that humans need the
imaginary, that it would be impossible to
imagine a human world without some
form of storytelling. But what we call "lit-
erature"is but one form of the imaginary,
that of a paper culture, a communication
regime which has lasted only a few cen-
turies, and the passing of which should
not be a cause for shock and mourning. He
discusses at length the authority granted
to literature,its sources or grounds and its
importance in what the German's call Bil-
dung, the instilling of a national ethos, also
one of the main traditional functions of the
university. He also considers the ways in
which deconstruction after Nietzsche has
spent a century demystifying that authori-
ty, critiquing its ideological functions.
I have only scratched the surface of this
wonderful little book. I have not men-
tioned, for example, that alongside sophis-
ticated philosophical reflections, Miller re-
TODAY *
WORLDLITERATURE
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
turns often to his childhood reading of The
Swiss FamilyRobinson,along with an adult
rereading, after many decades, undertaken
in the course of writing On Literature.He ac-
knowledges the ideological indoctrination
in a certain version of the Protestant ethic
that now seems obvious to him in that
novel. At the same time, however, he stress-
es the enchantments of entering fiction's
virtual reality, giving oneself over to a
world so different from one's own. I know
that that is the main reason I still love to
read novels. I am not at all sure that such a
love is acknowledged and nurtured in uni-
versity literaturecourses in our day. One of
the many reasons why Miller'sthoughts on
literatureare so rewarding is in his defense
of the primal love of reading.
David S. Gross
University of Oklahoma
m
Darryl Pinckney. Out There: Mavericks
of Black Literature. New York. Basic.
2002. xiv + 160 pages. $24. isbn 0-465-
05760-8
Out There collects three lectures by Darryl
Pinckney written originally for Harvard's -0
Alain LeRoy Locke Lecture Series, a series m
ZJO
LO
that honors the first African American to -o
m
win a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. Each 3
rn
of Pinckney's lectures investigates the life
O
and writing of a "maverick" twentieth-
century black writer who established a re-
lationship to Europe. The first focuses on
I
Jamaicanborn J. A. Rogers, the author of
^4
Sex and Race,a three-volume work that at- m
tempted to rewrite early-twentieth-centu-
>
-I
C
ry notions of history and race through a ZO
m
patchwork of quotation and reconsidera-
tion. The second examines the life of the
<
77:3-4 * OCTOBER-DECEMBER
2003 * 157
American writer Vincent O. Carter, who to Schechner, performance refers to a Schechner also liberally incorporates the
only published one book, TheBernBook,a "broadcontinuum of human actions rang- theories, scripts, and actor's exercises of
memoir of the time he spent from 1953 to ing from ritual, play, sports, pop entertain- Jerzy Grotowski, and Vsevelod Meyerhold
1957 as the only black man in Bern, ment, performing arts . . . everyday life before him, to zero in on staging in an "en-
Switzerland. The third explores Caryl performance . . . healing, the media, and vironmental theatre" and performer-actor
Phillips, who was born on St. Kitts in 1958 the Internet/' Illustrating the hybridity of relationships, which counter traditional
but moved to Leeds when he was four performance worldwide, Schechner sur- views of the audience as passive as the set:
months old. Where, Pinckney asks, reiter- veys everything from Shakespeare to perfunctorily realistic, defined, and pres-
ating Phillips himself, in such a case is chimpanzee theater, urban happenings, ent. Further demonstrating Schechner's
one's home? In the Caribbean or in Eng- Ramlila (or the play of Ramal, which takes deep knowledge of performancetheorists,
land or entirely elsewhere? thirty-one days to perform in Ramnagar he surveys the views of Guillermo Gomez-
For Pinckney, Rogers is very much a across "the holy city of Banaras"),colonial Pena, a Mexican artist and writer, to ex-
man of his time, bound and limited by his mimicry, gender and racial "passing," plain this new intercultural performance
age and by his methodology, compelled to British prime minister Tony Blair's per- that is, in Gomez-Pena's words, "cross-
try to disprove white versions of history formance of "informality"before a televi- racial,polylinguistic, and multicultural."
by accepting some of its premises and au- sion camera, the pig-kill dance in Papua Schechner's extraordinary breadth of
thority. By the time we get to Phillips, New Guinea, and terrorism as a perform- coverage and carefully tuned interpreta-
Pinckney suggests, one thing that is strik- ance event. Eddie Murphy, Leadbelly, and tions of performance studies are comple-
ing is that Phillips 'locates, in a manner the Road Warrior Wrestling Team share mented by two special features- nearly
that seems very natural to him, Rushdie two hundred photos and drawings of peo-
billing with Chekhov, Gandhi, and Shake-
and Thackerayin the same tradition. ... To
speare. For Schechner, "performancestud- ple, events, art, and architectureengaged
present English literature as an expression ies resists fixed definitions." In fact, like in the performanceprocess and at least one
of a historically diverse culture, a mongre- hundred extracts, or boxed inserts, from
polymers, it may be easier to say what per-
lized culture, is a decision, a challenge, but
formance is rather than what it is not. the "manyvoices" who supply "alternative
also a simple recognition of a long-accom- Schechner offers eight invigorating opinions and interruptions," much like
plished fact." Indeed, taken together the chapters on the modalities of performativ- "open conversation" and "hyperlinks."
lectures can be read as a commentary on Thus, even in its design Schechner's
ity. The earlier ones interrogate the foun-
different ways of being a black writer in dational and taxonomic issues of who, book- a veritable vade mecum- weaves
the twentieth century. readers and writers, and the author him-
how, and why, embracing such topics as
The fact that these pieces were first de- self, into the montage of performance.
"Eight Kinds of Performances,"ethical is-
livered as lectures is both their strength sues of acting, and changing and inventing PhilipC. Kolin
and their weakness. They are eminently rituals. His middle chapters turn to the ori- Universityof SouthernMississippi
readable and flow beautifully. At the same
gins, places, and times of performances
time, in terms of complexity they're closer
to magazine pieces than to serious scholar-
(sacred and secular); the qualities, bias, m
and messages of play; and then, in chap- Switching Languages: Translingual
ship. Still, when Pinckney does make a ters 5 and 6, he offers an exceptionally co-
critical statement or judgment he is inci- Writers Reflect on Their Craft. Steven G.
gent and lucid philosophical grounding Kellman, ed. Lincoln. University of Nebraska
sive, his touch light but full of conviction.for performance studies in poststructural-
Out Thereis a good, well-written (albeit Press. 2003. xix + 339 pages. $55 ($19.95
ism and postmodernism. Using the works paper), isbn 0-8032-2747-7 (7807-1 paper)
light) read. of Derrida, Jameson, Foucault, and
BrianEvenson
Richard Foreman, to cite only a few of the Translingualwriters are those who write in
BrownUniversity
many theorists whose insights are includ- more than one language or in a language
ed, Schechner demonstrates how "the col- other than their primary one. Kellmancalls
m lapse of categories" and "the evaporation them the prodigies of world literature.The
Richard Schechner. Performance Stud- of audience" play majorparts in the evolu- list of writers who have written in more
ies: An Introduction. New York. Rout- tion of performance events. In his final than one language is extensive. Among the
ledge. 2002. vii + 288 pages. $80 ($27.95 chapter, "Global and InterculturalPerfor- more prominent ones are Vladimir
paper), isbn 0-415-14620-8 (14621-6 paper) mance," Schechnermoves into new arenas Nabokov, who wrote in both Russian and
of Internet (digital vs. written) perform- English; Mendele Mokher Sforim, in Urdu
Richard Schechner, one of the architects ances, Hollywood hi-tech scripts, and tran- and Hindi; Samuel Beckett, in French and
of performance studies as a discipline and scultural diversity. English; and Joseph Conrad, in Polish,
the highly respected author of TDR: A Of special interest to students of world French, and English. In addition, there are
Journalof Performance at New York Univer- literature, Schechner judiciously incorpo- those writers who have transplantedthem-
sity, has written an invaluable guide to rates a goodly amount of modern theater selves into other cultures and are writing in
this interdisciplinary scholarly area. A vi- into his analysis of the performance the language of the new culture. Among
brant and emergent field (developed with- process. Brecht'sviews on actors,directing, them are Ha Jin, Kazuo Ishiguro, Arund-
in the last two to three decades), perform- and the audience's alienation illustrate for hati Roy, Salman Rushdie, J. M. Coetzee,
ance studies combines the inquiries and Schechnera theater that challenges instead and Ben Okri. And one should not for-
insights of anthropology, art, dance, eth- of corroborates, one that, like so many get those translingual authors who have
nology, music, philosophy, theater, theolo- other types of performances, "proposes al- received the Nobel Prize, such as Wole
gy, and a host of other subjects. According ternative actions, and demystifies events." Soyinka, Elias Canetti, and S. Y. Agnon.

158 * TODAY *
WORLDLITERATURE 77:3-4 ® 2003
OCTOBER-DECEMBER

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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions