Deneau, Daniel P.

English

University of New Brunswick: Centre for Digital Scholarship Journals

J. HILLIS MILLER Fiction and Repetition: Seven English Novels Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982. Pp. 250. $15.00. In Fiction and Repetition J. Hillis Miller, well known as a critic of Victorian literature and, in recent years, as a literary theorist, presents an introduction entitled "Two Forms of Repetition," followed by individ-ual chapters on Lord Jim, Wuthering Heights, Henry Esmond, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, The Well-Beloved, Mrs. Dalloway, and Between the Acts. He explains that his book, though "not a work of theory as such," is a series of read-ings focusing "on the 'how' of meaning rather than on its 'what.' " While much of his genuinely intelligent and subtle com-mentary on the seven novels (the more or less New Critical readings) cannot be con-densed and fitted into a review, it should be possible to clarify some of his basic as-sumptions and repeated conclusions—mat-ters which may be distressing or at least controversial. Miller's distinction between two kinds of "intertwining" repetition—first, "Platonic," which is "grounded in a solid archetypal model" and will seem normative to most readers; second, the "Nietzschean mode," which is "the subversive ghost of the first," ungrounded, riddling, arising "out of the interplay of. . . opaquely similar things"— may be valid and important; but, after all, in the essays which comprise the body of the book (except those on Hardy) repetition seems to be a more or less peripheral sub-ject. It is possible that Miller's tide, intro-duct ion , and in te rmi t ten t interest in repetition are a result of the scholarly com-munity's demand for a governing "thesis." Certainly a book which ignores Continental writers, such as Mann and Robbe-Grillet, cannot pretend to be a comprehensive study of repetition in fiction. Moreover, in one notable instance Miller ignores the fact that scholarship demands continuity: that is to say, he does not even allude to E.K. Brown's Rhythm in the Novel, perhaps dated (1950), but clear, persuasive, gendemanly lectures, in which, incidentally, Brown consistently employs a phrase, borrowed from E.M. Forster, which should have been handy for Miller, "repetition with variation." Of Mil-ler's seven chapters on individual novels, that on Mrs. Dalloway is clearly the best; uni-formly the result of sensitive and careful reading, the chapter comments on the "nar-rating presence," the image of "a great en-shadowing tree," tenses, the song of the old woman, and so on. The chapters on Hardy rank second. The longest is on Esmond, a "family romance" and definitely an ironic book for Miller. The chapter on Between the Acts seems as nervous or disjointed as the novel itself, and the opening chapters on Jim and the Heights are the most emphatic pieces of deconstruction. Yes, although Fiction and Repetition is "not a work of theory as such," it is a work which frequently discovers "heterogeneity," a de-constructionist's goal. (I say "frequently" be-cause, as far as I can see, Miller's preoccupation with deconstruction fades in the last three chapters.) Miller's analyses are preceded by an important declaration: "one characteristic" of his own criticism, he as-serts, is "a desire to account for the totality of a given work . . . The readings in this book assume that the demand for a total accounting is implicit in the effort of inter-pretation, even when it is evaded or mini-mized" (emphasis added) . How many professional students of literature "assume" the same thing? Not all by any means, as David Lodge suggests: "Criticism, then, cannot avoid being partial and selective" (The Novelist at the Crossroads, p. 63). Miller's deconstructionist conclusions are stated clearly and boldly. Lord Jim, for in-stance, is said to raise questions but not an-swer them; "the indeterminacy lies in the multiplicity of possible incompatible expla-nations given by the novel and in the lack of evidence justifying a choice of one over the others." As for Wuthering Heights, which has generated nearly countless essays writ-ten by critics who hope to be "the Daniel who can at last decipher the writing on the wall," it resists "a single definitive reading," not because it is "incoherent, confused, or flawed," but because the "center," "the head referent," the "innermost core" is missing (for similar comments on other novels, see pp. 109, 128, 140, 142). Those who distrust such conclusions may be pleased to find that only in limited ways is Miller able to illus-trate or to prove "the unresolvable heter-ogeneity" of the various novels. He likes to pick out passages which are "emblems" of the whole, possibly because an exhaustive deconstructionist essay would be excessively long. (He also likes the language of weaving, possibly because he wishes to weave and then unweave, to construct and then decon-struct.) 64 The International Fiction Review, 10, No . 1 (1983) If all novels contain "unresolvable het-erogeneity," why write criticism at all? Lis-ten to Miller speak of Tess and The Well-Beloved: "The power of readings to go on multiplying means that Tess's wish to be 'forgotten quite' cannot be fulfilled. The chain of interpretation will continue to add new links." "In the case of such a text, any new reading, like each of the Avices, is no more than an additional link midway in an endless chain stretching before and be-hind." Perhaps we can no longer delude ourselves and think of criticism as cumu-lative, as gradually creating a consensus about some "truth"; but if criticism is noth-ing more than an endless repetition of var-ious competing possibilities, if it is nothing "more than an additional link midway in an endless chain"—cui bono} Kafka and Dante come to mind, particularly the Infernoites who engage in ceaseless and meaningless activity. There is much in Miller's book—standard literary criticism, at times brilliant; brief ex-cursions into theory (for instance, see com-ments on Iser and Kermode, pp. 214-16); and perhaps glimpses of a dark abyss some readers will wish to deny. Daniel P. Deneau HEINRICH BÖLL Fürsorgliche Belagerung Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1979, Pp. 415. In contrast with his compatriot, Günter Grass, Heinrich Böll reveals himself in his novels as overtly softhearted, even senti-mental at times. Grass reminds one rather of a sinister magician with a glittering bag of narrative tricks: he rarely ceases to as-tound and confound with his weird fan-tasies and his grotesque smoke screens. Heinrich Boll's fiction, on the other hand, does not show enough sleight of hand to deceive a sideshow audience for five sec-onds. In fact, Boll's artistic forte is not nar-rative techniques at all, but r a the r straightforward sincerity and fatherly con-cern. His recent novel, Fürsorgliche Belage-rung, seems to have been written by an eccentric but very humane old priest who has lost his dogma and is unsure about his faith but who is filled with a troubled love for all human beings. Now nostalgically and now indignantly Boll mourns in this novel for the irretrievably lost spirit of a loving Christian community. It is not for nothing that his protagonist, Fritz Tolm, is a sad, old man who shows himself to be well meaning and kind, but quite impotent against the evil monster that is tearing Western society apart. Heinrich Böll is convinced that this monster is the juggernaut capitalism. It is the capi-talist mode of production in an anonymous mass society, he feels, which is encouraging the perverted and unstable few to pursue their lust for power over the plodding many. Not, as Böll makes clear in Fürsorgliche Be-lagerung, that the worst exploited are the young leftist socialists of West Germany who lost their professional employment owing to the Radikalenerlaß (Radicals' Ordinance) and the neo-McCarthy witch hunt for commu-nist spies and sputniks in the 70's. No, the worst exploited are the refugee-employees in Third-World countries who labor for a starving pittance to produce the fripperies and gadgeteries of our department stores. Böll longs to replace his disillusioned dream of Christian brotherhood with a lib-eral, humanitarian socialism. His heroes of the future are the young middle-class in-tellectuals whose economic studies at West-ern universities have given them a moral epiphany and a socialist mission. They are convinced that capitalist society is in the death throes of suffocating in the futility of affluence and sexual self-indulgence, the pollution of their living environment, and the guilty anxiety of the haves that they may soon be guillotined by the have-nots. Für-sorgliche Belagerung reveals a ruling elite which is rotten throughout with fear or perversity and is constantly engaged in compulsive manipulations to increase its power and prestige. The leaders of this group have devised an intricate machine of secret security policemen to protect them-selves from ultra left-wing terrorists. But they do not die at the hands of idealistic assassins. Trapped in the publicity glare of the media providing ersatz titillation for the unadventurous masses, these men of the elite jerk like marionettes on center stage through their scandals, their miseries, their emo-tional self-mutilations, and often ultimately their suicides. Böll seems sure that a socialist government would lift mankind from this sump of futility. Fürsorgliche Belagerung is the novel of an unabashed moralist whose aim is to per-suade the reader that at least a provisional refuge from the perversions of affluence Brief Mentions 65 

J. Hillis Miller, Fiction and Repetition: Seven English Novels

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J. Hillis Miller, Fiction and Repetition: Seven English Novels

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