At Large and Unrelated

Abstract

American ÏèvÏew" Di Leo continuedfrom previous page modemist narrative strategies of Ishiguro, Rushdie, and Sebald are transformations of those of Conrad, Joyce, and Woolf. She calls the tactics of these writers' cosmopolitan styles "to emphasize the importance ofaffect, manner, and self-consciousness in all practices of critical cosmopolitanism and to identify the use of new narrative strategies in the cosmopolitan literary practices of the twentieth-century." Moreover, Walkowitz contends that her broad conception of style—one that regards style as stance, consciousness , posture, and attitude—is useful inunderstanding nonliterary conceptions of cosmopolitanism such as those in media studies, history, and anthropology. In a very subtle move, Walkowitz situates her own cosmopolitan style as a complement, not a challenge , to the cosmopolitan politics ofBruce Robbins and others. Forher, recognition ofcosmopolitan style foregrounds an analytic feature ofthe critical cosmopolitanisms of these writers—and does not supplant cosmopolitan politics. The basic point forWalkowitz seems to be that "cosmopolitan theory is more literary and more modemist than its practitioners have previously acknowledged." Whereas cosmopolitanism as viewed through the lens of political criticism has tended to reduce considerations ofstyle, Walkowitz's book rigorously and persuasively restores considerations of style into cosmopolitan theory. Walkowitz's book is an impressive interweaving of theoretical speculation and close reading. Its own style is marked by careful textual exegesis punctuated by appropriate (albeit eclectic) theoretical pairing . While Walkowitz's study most clearly favors the critical work ofTheodor W. Adorno, numerous other theorists—from Homi K. Bhabha and James Clifford to Michel de Certeau and Gilles Deleuze—come to the fore at appropriate moments. Even though the introduction may be slow going for those unaccustomed to the vernacular of contemporary cultural and literary theory, it will be well worth the effort as it provides a telegraphic overview of some of the main issues in cosmopolitan theory. The readings of the individual novelists are less theoretically dense and are well-argued and written. My main complaint about the book is a relatively minor one: it lacks a discussion of the relationship of postmodernism to cosmopolitan style, particularly when Ishiguro, Rushdie, and Sebald are ordinarily more closely affiliated with postmodernist fiction than modemist fiction. While a couple of passing mentions of postmodernism are made, they do not provide much insight as to why postmodernist international fiction could not as well result in critical cosmopolitanism. Nevertheless, Walkowitz's book is to be praised for reinforcing the important point that fiction is an ideal place to explore critically the complicated, troubled and troubling, social and political waters of contemporary, transnational, global society. JeffreyR. Di Leo is editor ofAmerican Book Review and interim dean ofArts and Sciences at the University ofHouston-Victoria. Hisforthcoming book, with R. M. Berry, Fiction's Present: Situating Contemporary Narrative Innovation, will be published later this year by SUNY Press. At Large and Unrelated Terry Caesar Against the Day Thomas Pynchon Penguin http://www.penguin.com 1,085 pages; cloth, $35.00 Who can resist a novel in which a dog named Pugnax is seen reading Henry James (turning the pages using paws and nose) or where the Archduke Ferdinand asks to rent the Chicago Stockyards (he can't) for a weekend's "amusement" of himself and his friends? And this merely in the first fifty pages ! Trouble is, still over a thousand pages more to go. Who can resist? Well, lots ofreaders, even those, like me, who couldn't wait to read Thomas Pynchon's first novel since 1997'. Against the Dayis 1,085 pages and weighs 3.32 pounds. The book demands its own sheer size as its first, and perhaps final, consideration. Why in his sixty-ninth year has arguably America's greatest living author produced such an enormous, demanding, exhausting novel? The easiest answer is that the thing continually seeks out itselfdifferent generic forms—boys adventure stories, science fiction, espionage thrillers—as a function ultimately of being at war with its own form. There are narratives but no supervening one (Best candidate: one or two series ofepisodic adventures of the three sons—Frank, Kit, and Reef—of a murdered anarchist, Webb Traverse). There are characters, but no central individual (Among the prominent ones: Lew Basnight, a detective...