academic fiction

8/10/2019 academic fiction

1/4

Postwar Academic Fiction: Satire, Ethics, Community by Kenneth WomackReview by: Michael GreaneyThe Yearbook of English Studies, Vol. 34, Nineteenth-Century Travel Writing (2004), pp. 269-271Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3509512.

Accessed: 31/10/2014 03:55

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Modern Humanities Research Associationis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access

to The Yearbook of English Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 203.110.243.22 on Fri, 31 Oct 2014 03:55:44 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mhrahttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3509512?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3509512?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mhra


2/4

TES,

34,

2004

ES,

34,

2004

26969

accounts

of Africa

by

arguing

that racism

was

rarely

a

major

factor

in

descriptions

of

China,

which was

usually

presented

as

separate

and different. This

does

not

mean,

however,

that travellers' observations were

neutral;

indeed,

how

could

they

be? One theme that

emerges repeatedly

is that of the

senility

of the

culture,

a

perception

that

Confucianism

had

induced

a state of

cultural arrest.

Secondly,

there

was the

question

of

hygiene. Beijing

was described

by

a

number

of

travellers as

the

'city

of

dreadful

dirt',

partly

to

express

their

startled

experience

of extremes

of wealth and

poverty being mingled together.

Clifford

quietly

but

firmly

resists

what has become

something

of an

orthodoxy

in

the

analysis

of travel

writing

since

Edward Said's

pivotal

studies

of

orientalism,

namely

that

Western

travellers

engag-

ed

in

acts of

imaginative

colonization. Clifford

argues

to the

contrary

that

in

some

cases Western accounts

presented

China

as the culture

being

visited

by

barbarians.

In

this

case,

Chinese culture was read as the civilized Other.

Alternatively,

Western

accounts sometimes helped to correct such practicesas the notorious foot-binding.

Another

turning-point

in

Clifford's

history

comes

with the

First World War. From

the

920S

onwards,

travellerswere far less

judgemental

and

far

more

cautious

about

how much

knowledge

they

were

claiming

of Chinese culture. This

period

coincided

with the

opening up

of China to tourism.

Shanghai

and

Hong Kong

became

regular

stop-off points

for liners and

in

the

193os

air

travel made even more

access

possible

for visitors. Clifford

distinguishes

between the

vast

Chinese hinterland and

the

Treaty

Ports,

which were

heavily

westernized.

A

I930

shipping

advertisement

exclaimed

of

Shanghai:

'It's

as

cosmopolitan

as Vienna ' and in

those

ports

expatriate

communities

grew

up

within

a

context

of

cultural

hybridity. Throughout

the I930S, probably under the impact of the civil war between Nationalists

and

Communists,

a

new kind of book

began

to

appear

which

pursued

the 'whither

China'

theme

of

imminent

change.

Arthur Snow's RedStarOver

China

was one

such

study

which included

an

early

portrait

of

Mao

Zedong.

As

the

thirties

progressed,

war

came

to

occupy

more and more of the travellers'concerns.

Christopher

Isher-

wood and W. H. Auden's

Journey

o a War

(I939)

was

typical

of

the

period

in

its

subject.

Or

perhaps

we should

say

in

its

attempted

ubject,

because their

ignorance

of the

language

and therefore of the culture

generally

led Auden

and

Isherwood

to abandon their

original plan

of war

reporting.

Theirs was an

extreme instance of

a

general

difficulty

travellers

registered

of

penetrating

the

extreme formalities and

decorum of Chinese culture. Some did manage this nevertheless, and even, like

Agnes

Smedley,

made their

way through

the Nationalist blockades to meet the

Chinese Communists. Clifford's

judicious

and informative

study unfortunately ust

breaks off

at a

point

where a new

phase

of Chinese-Western

relations

are

develop-

ing

with the

beginning

of the Cold

War.

The

relative closure

of

China

to

Western

visitors

and

the

stigmatization

of such commentators as

Agnes

Smedley

and

Pearl

Buck

in

the

USA

must wait for

a

sequel

study.

UNIVERSITY F

LIVERPOOL

DAVID

SEED

Postwar AcademicFiction:Satire, Ethics, Community.By KENNETHWOMACK.Basingstoke

and

New

York:

Palgrave.

2002.

viii

+

207

pp.

?

40.

ISBN:

0-333-91882-7.

This

study

examines

the

satirical

representations

of

campus

life

in

texts

by

Kingsley

Amis, Nabokov,

Joyce

Carol

Oates,

David

Lodge,

David

Mamet,

Ishmael

Reed,

accounts

of Africa

by

arguing

that racism

was

rarely

a

major

factor

in

descriptions

of

China,

which was

usually

presented

as

separate

and different. This

does

not

mean,

however,

that travellers' observations were

neutral;

indeed,

how

could

they

be? One theme that

emerges repeatedly

is that of the

senility

of the

culture,

a

perception

that

Confucianism

had

induced

a state of

cultural arrest.

Secondly,

there

was the

question

of

hygiene. Beijing

was described

by

a

number

of

travellers as

the

'city

of

dreadful

dirt',

partly

to

express

their

startled

experience

of extremes

of wealth and

poverty being mingled together.

Clifford

quietly

but

firmly

resists

what has become

something

of an

orthodoxy

in

the

analysis

of travel

writing

since

Edward Said's

pivotal

studies

of

orientalism,

namely

that

Western

travellers

engag-

ed

in

acts of

imaginative

colonization. Clifford

argues

to the

contrary

that

in

some

cases Western accounts

presented

China

as the culture

being

visited

by

barbarians.

In

this

case,

Chinese culture was read as the civilized Other.

Alternatively,

Western

accounts sometimes helped to correct such practicesas the notorious foot-binding.

Another

turning-point

in

Clifford's

history

comes

with the

First World War. From

the

920S

onwards,

travellerswere far less

judgemental

and

far

more

cautious

about

how much

knowledge

they

were

claiming

of Chinese culture. This

period

coincided

with the

opening up

of China to tourism.

Shanghai

and

Hong Kong

became

regular

stop-off points

for liners and

in

the

193os

air

travel made even more

access

possible

for visitors. Clifford

distinguishes

between the

vast

Chinese hinterland and

the

Treaty

Ports,

which were

heavily

westernized.

A

I930

shipping

advertisement

exclaimed

of

Shanghai:

'It's

as

cosmopolitan

as Vienna ' and in

those

ports

expatriate

communities

grew

up

within

a

context

of

cultural

hybridity. Throughout

the I930S, probably under the impact of the civil war between Nationalists

and

Communists,

a

new kind of book

began

to

appear

which

pursued

the 'whither

China'

theme

of

imminent

change.

Arthur Snow's RedStarOver

China

was one

such

study

which included

an

early

portrait

of

Mao

Zedong.

As

the

thirties

progressed,

war

came

to

occupy

more and more of the travellers'concerns.

Christopher

Isher-

wood and W. H. Auden's

Journey

o a War

(I939)

was

typical

of

the

period

in

its

subject.

Or

perhaps

we should

say

in

its

attempted

ubject,

because their

ignorance

of the

language

and therefore of the culture

generally

led Auden

and

Isherwood

to abandon their

original plan

of war

reporting.

Theirs was an

extreme instance of

a

general

difficulty

travellers

registered

of

penetrating

the

extreme formalities and

decorum of Chinese culture. Some did manage this nevertheless, and even, like

Agnes

Smedley,

made their

way through

the Nationalist blockades to meet the

Chinese Communists. Clifford's

judicious

and informative

study unfortunately ust

breaks off

at a

point

where a new

phase

of Chinese-Western

relations

are

develop-

ing

with the

beginning

of the Cold

War.

The

relative closure

of

China

to

Western

visitors

and

the

stigmatization

of such commentators as

Agnes

Smedley

and

Pearl

Buck

in

the

USA

must wait for

a

sequel

study.

UNIVERSITY F

LIVERPOOL

DAVID

SEED

Postwar AcademicFiction:Satire, Ethics, Community.By KENNETHWOMACK.Basingstoke

and

New

York:

Palgrave.

2002.

viii

+

207

pp.

?

40.

ISBN:

0-333-91882-7.

This

study

examines

the

satirical

representations

of

campus

life

in

texts

by

Kingsley

Amis, Nabokov,

Joyce

Carol

Oates,

David

Lodge,

David

Mamet,

Ishmael

Reed,

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/4

Reviews

Sandra

M.

Gilbert and Susan

Gubar,

and

Jane

Smiley.

The

texts under discussion

-eight

novels,

one

story

collection

(Oates's

The

Hungry

Ghosts),

ne

screenplay

(Mamet's

Oleanna),

and one work of 'nonfictional dramatization'

(Gilbert

and

Gubar's

Masterpiece

heatre)

display, according

to Kenneth

Womack,

a

'pejorative

poetics'

in

their

response

to

academe. For

Womack,

the

campus

novel

typically

functions as

a

satirical

expose

of the

unscrupulous

individualism that

corrupts

the

modern

university's

collective

pursuit

of

wisdom, truth,

and

knowledge.

From

the

provincial

redbrick of Amis's

Lucky

im

to the midwestern

college

of

Smiley's

Moo,

the

ivory

towers

of

modern

fiction,

governed by

a

cynical

'bottom-line

mentality'

(p.

I62)

and an

oppressive publish-or-perish

ethos,

have witnessed innumerable

cases of

professional malpractice,

sexual

harassment,

and

intellectual

fraud and

incompetence.

The

portrait

of

academe discerned

by

Womack

in

these texts is one

of

a

system

in ethical

disarray.

Ethics is also Womack's central

methodological

preoccupation.

His book

announces itself

as

part

of the 'humanist revival'

(p.

I7),

a

resurgence

of

interest

in

notions of

goodness,

virtue,

community, duty,

and value after the 'nihilism'

of

poststructuralism.

nspiration

for this

approach

is found

in

the

writings

of

Wayne

C.

Booth,

Martha

C.

Nussbaum,

and other critics who

'dare

to

engage

in

the

interpre-

tation

of

human values'

(p.

i

).

Ethical criticism

is

enthusiastically

nvoked

through-

out

this book:

each

chapter opens

with a renewed assertion of the

special

advantages

of Womack's favoured

methodology,

whilst the final

paragraph

hails

the

'apotheosis

of ethics'

(p.

162)

in

contemporary

criticism.

But

it is

difficult to see how

a

general

interest

in

matters

of moral

choice,

and

in

tensions

between self-interestand collec-

tive

responsibility,

adds

up

to a new

'interpretiveparadigm'

(p.

II).

There is some

persuasive

local

theorizing

here: Oleanna

responds

interestingly

to

Levinasian ideas

about our

'obligations

to the irreducibleface of the

other'

(p.

Ioo),

while Bakhtinian

notions of

'heteroglossia

and carnival'

(p.

145)

enliven the

discussion

of

Moo,

but

the critical

method tends towards

plot summary

and character

analysis,

with

the latter often conducted at a

disarmingly

basic level: the

account

of

Lucky

Jim,

for

example,

re-lives and

re-narrates the

experiences

of the hero

in

moment-

by-moment

fashion -'Dixon

hungers',

'Dixon

confesses',

'Dixon

opts',

'Dixon

masks',

'Dixon

endures',

'Dixon wanes'

in

the course of 'Dixon's

plight'.

This

approach

is

sympathetic enough,

but it is not

quite

a

methodological breakthrough.

Nor does Womack's notion of 'pejorative

poetics'

ever come into its own as a

rigorous

analytical

category. Literary-critical

nuance

is often absent from

the

dis-

cussion: Nabokov rubs

shoulders

with

Kingsley

Amis,

Lodge

with

Mamet,

but these

fascinatingly ncongruous uxtapositions

go

unremarkedand

unanalysed.

The

tradi-

tion

of

satirical

writing

on

show here is

tentatively

identified as 'Swiftian'

(p.

I59),

but the vision of academe

in

Lodge

and

Smiley

is

surely

more affectionate and

forgiving

than that.

'Pejorative poetics' implies

a

concerted

hostility,

whereas

one

might equally allege

the existence of a

suspiciously

comfortable

relationship

between

academe and the comic novel- a

genre produced

and

consumed

by

intellectuals,

where the

cosy in-jokes

and self-referential

ronies

of

academic discourse drown out

any rumour of the existence of a world beyond the seminar room.

PostwarAcademic iction

provides

a

useful

introductory

overview,

a

careful and

sympathetic

re-statement

of the

ethical and

professional

dilemmas

negotiated by

the

fictional

intelligentsia;

but

the

questions

it

raises

over the

complex

affiliations

270



4/4

TES,

34, 2004

ES,

34, 2004 27I7I

between academic institutions

and

literary genres

are

worthy

of

a more

searching

investigation.

LANCASTER

UNIVERSITY

MICHAEL

GREANEY

Postcolonial

Imaginings:

Fictions

of

a

New

World

Order.

By

DAVID PUNTER.

Edinburgh:

Edinburgh

University

Press.

2000.

viii

+

238

pp.

?I5.95.

ISBN:

0-7486-0856-7.

'In

place

of

writing

as

production

or as

representation

what we

[...]

have is

a

"continuous

show

of

writing",

a

writing

"as

if",

or

a

writing

"instead

of" a

text

that

can no

longer

be written

because

it

has been

defaced,

effaced'

(p.

81).

It

is

in

this

analysis

of V. S.

Naipaul's

A

Housefor

Mr

Biswas hat

the

problem

bedevilling

David

Punter's

text is

most

clearly

encapsulated.

This

problem

turns

on

the

question

of

the

relation of

the textual

to the

real,

for as the

quotation

above

suggests,

what is at

issue

here is an

argument,

by

now familiar

through

Edward Said's

work,

that

a

West

Indies

(or

an

orient,

for

Said)

formulated

by

others

(the

texts

of

colonialism)

is

what forms

a barrier

between

us

and the

reality

of the West

Indies.

And

though

it

could

be

argued

that

Punter is

here

simply

analysing

Naipaul's

elaboration

of this

argument,

Postcolonial

maginings

s

dogged

throughout

by

the

problem

of what

to do

with

the

'real'.

For Punter's

text,

though

it

avers the

impossibility

of

accessing

what

is

supposed

to

be referred

to

by

the 'text

instead'

(p.

9),

nevertheless

relies on

a

depth

model of

literature,

which

continually

has

recourse

to

'beneath',

'behind'

(p.

89),

'below'

(p.

63),

'beyond'

(p.

I02),

a rhetoric

that

suggests

a

conception

of

the

text as somehow articulating hat which it does not articulate('textsare composed

of

silences',

p.

105),

where the

analysis

of a

literary

text's

production

of itself as

a

'cover

story'

(p.

177)

or

something

else slides

into

the

truth about

postcolonial

literature.

This

may explain

also

the avowed

problem

Postcolonial

maginings

as with

'psycho-

analysis'

where

the

'concept

of the

unconscious'

is

rejected

as

friable

(p.

104)

on the

grounds

of its

cultural

and Western

specificity,

but is

reinstated

under

another

name,

'the

crypt'

(p.

63).

Not

only

that,

Punter's

particular

brand

of

'psychoanalysis'

reappears

in

that

most

problematic

of

forms,

the

'psychoanalysis'

of fictional

char-

acters

and their

fictional

traumas

(see

pp.

132-33).

Again,

the

problem

of

'psycho-

analysis'

here would

seem

to

turn

on a

reading

in

which

the 'unconscious'

appears

as the site of some un-analysable truth, and is therefore rejected by Punter to be

replaced

by

'the

crypt'

which,

though

it is

supposed

to function

as

'a most

radical

decentring

of consciousness'

seems

always

in Punter's

text to

resolve

itself

from

a

troubling

of

self-identity

into the

identity

of 'the

irredeemably

other'

(p.

63).

These

are

just

two

instances

of the

kind

of

contradictions

and inconsistencies

that

pervade

Postcolonial

maginings.

nother

can

be found

in

the

call for

humility

in the

face of

the

postcolonial

that is

coupled

with

a

magisterial

assumption

of

knowledge

showing

little evidence

of

self-reflexive

critique

of Punter's

own

readings/productions

of

the themes

of

postcolonial

literature.

Nevertheless,

Punter's

scepticism

with

respect

to

the neo-romanticism

of

Kristeva

and Deleuze and Guattari, and to the vaunted utopian possibilities of the world-

wide

web,

together

with

his trenchant

critique

of the

hegemony

of

World

Bank

and

IMF-driven

economic

theory

are both

refreshing

and

timely.

Furthermore,

Postcolonial

maginings

akes

an

interesting

selection

of texts

that,

as

Punter

expresses

between academic institutions

and

literary genres

are

worthy

of

a more

searching

investigation.

LANCASTER

UNIVERSITY

MICHAEL

GREANEY

Postcolonial

Imaginings:

Fictions

of

a

New

World

Order.

By

DAVID PUNTER.

Edinburgh:

Edinburgh

University

Press.

2000.

viii

+

238

pp.

?I5.95.

ISBN:

0-7486-0856-7.

'In

place

of

writing

as

production

or as

representation

what we

[...]

have is

a

"continuous

show

of

writing",

a

writing

"as

if",

or

a

writing

"instead

of" a

text

that

can no

longer

be written

because

it

has been

defaced,

effaced'

(p.

81).

It

is

in

this

analysis

of V. S.

Naipaul's

A

Housefor

Mr

Biswas hat

the

problem

bedevilling

David

Punter's

text is

most

clearly

encapsulated.

This

problem

turns

on

the

question

of

the

relation of

the textual

to the

real,

for as the

quotation

above

suggests,

what is at

issue

here is an

argument,

by

now familiar

through

Edward Said's

work,

that

a

West

Indies

(or

an

orient,

for

Said)

formulated

by

others

(the

texts

of

colonialism)

is

what forms

a barrier

between

us

and the

reality

of the West

Indies.

And

though

it

could

be

argued

that

Punter is

here

simply

analysing

Naipaul's

elaboration

of this

argument,

Postcolonial

maginings

s

dogged

throughout

by

the

problem

of what

to do

with

the

'real'.

For Punter's

text,

though

it

avers the

impossibility

of

accessing

what

is

supposed

to

be referred

to

by

the 'text

instead'

(p.

9),

nevertheless

relies on

a

depth

model of

literature,

which

continually

has

recourse

to

'beneath',

'behind'

(p.

89),

'below'

(p.

63),

'beyond'

(p.

I02),

a rhetoric

that

suggests

a

conception

of

the

text as somehow articulating hat which it does not articulate('textsare composed

of

silences',

p.

105),

where the

analysis

of a

literary

text's

production

of itself as

a

'cover

story'

(p.

177)

or

something

else slides

into

the

truth about

postcolonial

literature.

This

may explain

also

the avowed

problem

Postcolonial

maginings

as with

'psycho-

analysis'

where

the

'concept

of the

unconscious'

is

rejected

as

friable

(p.

104)

on the

grounds

of its

cultural

and Western

specificity,

but is

reinstated

under

another

name,

'the

crypt'

(p.

63).

Not

only

that,

Punter's

particular

brand

of

'psychoanalysis'

reappears

in

that

most

problematic

of

forms,

the

'psychoanalysis'

of fictional

char-

acters

and their

fictional

traumas

(see

pp.

132-33).

Again,

the

problem

of

'psycho-

analysis'

here would

seem

to

turn

on a

reading

in

which

the 'unconscious'

appears

as the site of some un-analysable truth, and is therefore rejected by Punter to be

replaced

by

'the

crypt'

which,

though

it is

supposed

to function

as

'a most

radical

decentring

of consciousness'

seems

always

in Punter's

text to

resolve

itself

from

a

troubling

of

self-identity

into the

identity

of 'the

irredeemably

other'

(p.

63).

These

are

just

two

instances

of the

kind

of

contradictions

and inconsistencies

that

pervade

Postcolonial

maginings.

nother

can

be found

in

the

call for

humility

in the

face of

the

postcolonial

that is

coupled

with

a

magisterial

assumption

of

knowledge

showing

little evidence

of

self-reflexive

critique

of Punter's

own

readings/productions

of

the themes

of

postcolonial

literature.

Nevertheless,

Punter's

scepticism

with

respect

to

the neo-romanticism

of

Kristeva

and Deleuze and Guattari, and to the vaunted utopian possibilities of the world-

wide

web,

together

with

his trenchant

critique

of the

hegemony

of

World

Bank

and

IMF-driven

economic

theory

are both

refreshing

and

timely.

Furthermore,

Postcolonial

maginings

akes

an

interesting

selection

of texts

that,

as

Punter

expresses


academic fiction

Documents