A Night of the Longknives

Abstract

Phelan continuedfrom previous page warrants: if you can follow me on this path through this text, then won't you share my faith? But Booth knows that such appeals are not themselves definitive , and he occasionally worries on the page about how to communicate the grounds for his rhetorical faith. Consider this remarkable passage from the middle of chapter 11, "The Ethics of Forms: Taking Right with The Wings of the Dove": How can I express my conviction that it is good for me to be required to go through all this [the extremely taxing work of reading James's novel], and to know that if I return with similar attentiveness to the other late novels I'll be invited to similar—but always fresh—re-creations? I have no doubt about it myself—the T. who is so much inclined to pre-occupations of far less defensible kinds. My ultimate defense, if I could ever fully work it out, would have something to do with what happens to the 'back of my mind' during the waking hours before and after returning to the desk to wrestle with this recalcitrant work. Its scenes and language and puzzles form a running accompaniment while I'm trimming my beard and showering, while paying bills, while driving. In other words, it has made me over—in James's direction. I find the passage remarkable because Booth combines admissions of inadequacy ("how can I express my conviction"; "ifI could ever fully work it out") with the expression of the firmness of his faith ("I have no doubt about it myself). Booth's "ultimate defense" here actually comes down to personal testimony: I have rhetorical faith because in keeping company with James I get made over in his direction. Booth's testimony contains an implicit invitation to his audience: share my faith not by taking one grand leap but by taking the small step of believing my testimony. In this way, it is Booth's performance as a rhetorician, his appeals to both logos (those close readings and other reasoned arguments) and ethos (the character of his implied author), that provides the ultimate warrants for his rhetorical faith. In effect , Booth says, "if you find the author-audience relationship worthwhile as you read me, then you have grounds for sharing my rhetorical faith." This move is itself a bold one, and it is what gives much of Booth's work its evangelical overtones . Of course, not every reader ofBooth will find his performance convincing, or even worthwhile, and many who do will stop short of sharing his rhetorical faith. Nevertheless, Booth's influence on so many spheres of inquiry is convincing evidence of the power of his rhetorical faith and of his skill in communicating it. The Essential Wayne Booth is an important book because it puts that power and that skill on display on almost every page. James Phelan is Humanities DistinguishedProfessor in the English department at Ohio State University and the editor o/Narrative, thejournal ofthe Society for the Study ofNarrative Literature. A Night of the Longknives Eric Miles Williamson Uncontainable Noise Steve Davenport Pavement Saw Press http://www.pavementsaw.org 80 pages; paper, $12.00 What I've been hearing from literary types is a lot of whining. Literary authors (and we know who they are) published by small presses piss and moan about being underpublished, victims of some vast corporate conspiracy set on destroying the minds of consumerist capitalist victims. Over the years a goodly number ofwriters have used the pages ofAmerican BookReview to sound off against the corporatization and commodification of American letters. We hear how the New York publishing houses have abandoned literature because, hey, why not?—because Americans have been duped and spoon-fed massmarket goop for so long that they prefer the goop. We hear the moan that literature is on its deathbed, twitching and pissing in its adult diapers. Charles Frazier gets an eight million dollar advance on his new book, Thirteen Moons (2006), and the "literary" writers collectively scream in oppressed agony. Stephen King gets a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Award committee, and the moan becomes a porcine squeal, academic piglets chasing...