Illuminating Eco: On the Boundaries of Interpretation by Charlotte Ross , Rochelle Sibley (review)

Abstract

844 Reviews The fourth chapter considers the family language implemented by Ginzburg in Lessico famigliare as a 'background music' which halts when traumatic events are re? called. This analysis is very convincing, as is an analysis ofthe silence which surrounds the central figure,or io narrante. Simborowski makes the point that the self-effacement ofthe narrator parallels Ginzburg's reluctance to speak out on behalf of women, and that both are the result of insecurity, ambivalence, and unease regarding the position of women in ltalian society. The fifthchapter begins with a wide survey ofthe theme of women's silence in ltalian and Western culture, on the issue of the 'gaze' and its effecton women's behaviour and self-perception, and then focuses on Sanvitale, whose 'striking stylistic devices' in Madre e figlia 'are a response stimulated by the intrinsic contradiction of female reluctance to speak, coupled with her desire to tell' (p. 127). This type of writing, by representing the emotional via complex visual mon? tage effects,shows without revealing and is, according to Simborowski, specifically or typically feminine. The chapters on Ginzburg and Sanvitale constitute the most successful section of this study, since here the unsaid, as a literary technique and as a personal response, is combined with the strong literary and cultural motif of women's silence. This transforms the unsaid into a powerful means of social indictment. The finalchapter is a welcome re-examination of the role of the Einaudi publishing house in the light of its male-dominated establishment and of its reticence to touch upon issues of sexual politics, largely reflectingthe moral climate of post-war Italy. In conclusion, this book throws new light on a crucial period of ltalian culture. In the analysis of silence and the unsaid it provides a key forinterpretation, which works well (although not infallibly), and which highlights fundamental issues in ltalian literature of the second half of the twentieth century. University of Cambridge Olivia Santovetti Illuminating Eco: On the Boundaries ofInterpretation. Ed. by Charlotte Ross and Rochelle Sibley. Aldershot: Ashgate. 2004. xviii + 207pp. ?42.50. ISBNo7546 -3680-1. This volume of essays from a range of scholars approaches Eco's work from both Italianist and Comparative Literature perspectives. The aim of the volume, as of the conference from which it derives, is to place a particular focus on studies on Eco produced by academies in Britain, and to provide an additional, as well as at times an alternative, critical outlook to the critical traditions of the United States and Italy. In order to meet that objective, and stimulate the development of British studies on Eco, the collection has a consciously wide scope, including essays on both theory and fiction. It is principally divided into three sections: (1) Readers of Open (Para) Texts; (2) Overinterpreting Signs; (3) Future Directions. The essays of these sections are neatly framed by the introductory chapter by David Robey, whose 'Introduction: Interpreting and Uncertainty' (pp. 1?10) surveys Eco's approaches to reading and interpretation, challenging some of those views and the wilder shores of literary theory; and by the concluding essay of Mike Caesar: 'Eco on the Move: Notes for a Re-Reading' (pp. 155-67), in which he proposes that renewed attention be given to La struttura assente and to disentangling confusions between the writing of theory and the writing of fiction in criticism on Eco. Both Robey and Caesar are established critics of Eco's work and demonstrate a necessary objectivity and ability to remain at a critical distance from their subject, challenging and contesting his ideas. Several of the other essays might have been stronger if they had adopted a similarly robust approach to the author and his work. In spite of the insistence in the editors' preface on an equal focus on fictionand the? ory,the essays on balance privilege the latter,using the fictional works as illustration MLRy 100.3, 2005 845 more frequently than as the central focus of textual analysis. Ilpendolo di Foucault re? ceives more attention than in much previous criticism, and this is certainly welcome, and the essay by Jonathan Key, 'Maps and Territories. Eco Crossing the Boundary' (pp. 13-25), also considers L'isola...