Material Modernism: The Politics of the Page by George Bornstein (review)

Abstract

TES,34, 2004 TES,34, 2004 263 263 making it a function of desire felt by intellect for sense -by a connoisseurialmind for an idealisedobject of masculinevitality'(p. 54).James, also, 'seeksa compromise between differentstylesof receptivity'but he finds a differentkind of counterpartto Pater, namely 'the "woman of genius," [Anne Thackeray Ritchie] who in "The Art of Fiction,"has that power to "guessthe unseen from the seen", a receptivityhe himself cannot claim' (p. 86). Isabel Archer and Maisie are versions of the woman of genius; but Maisie, Matz shows, 'is the best proof that forJames, impressions, despite their reputation, are abstractions,but abstractionswhich require the simplicitywe associatewith (andfigureas)concretion' (p. III). In a fine sequence Matz demonstratesthat the 'female virtue' of Tess 'plays a central role in the definition and reception of the impression, especially with regard to Hardy's argument for social change' (p. 128).In Chapter4, 'The Distant Laborer',Matz turnsto Conrad's preface to TheNigger of the'Narcissus' and argues provocatively that Conrad at the end invokesa 'laborerin a distantfield' when he 'disclaimsthe theory he has been proposing' (p. I47). As with such figures in Pater,James, and Proust the 'laborer' is 'a way to claim Impressionistreceptivity and range without making full commitment to its collapse of epistemological distinctions'(p. I39). At the end of this chapter he vigorouslymaintainsthat Ford'sdictum in 'On Impressionism'that 'the artist needs [...] a man with quite virgin mind' such as the peasant cabmen to ensure 'a fully intense perception' is an alliance that affirmsFord's distrustof the politics of reform (p. I63). In Chapter 5, 'Woolf's Phenomenological Impression', Matz arguesthat her culturalstereotypeof Mrs Brown may markWoolf's Impressionism as a feministepistemology,but Mrs Brown is not only a 'woman of genius', she is 'also "a distantlaborer"who provokesmany of the same questionsprovoked by Conrad, Ford, and Proust' and, as Matz goes on to demonstrate, 'more strenuously , because Woolf is notoriouslya self-designated"snob"' (p. I76). In his last chapter, 'Three Impressionist Allegories', Matz utilizes the theories of Walter Benjamin and Paul de Man to argue (not always convincingly) that Mariusthe Epicurean, Heartof Darkness, and Mrs Dallowayare Impressionistallegories because they make impressions a matter of extensive speculation 'on the pattern set by Impressionist collaboration' (p. 2Io). So, finally, I recommend this ambitious, occasionally difficult,and provocative book. UNIVERSITYOF KENT AT CANTERBURY KEITH CARABINE MaterialModernism:The Politics of thePage. By GEORGE BORNSTEIN. Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. 200I. xii + i85 pp. ,35; $54.95. ISBN: 0-521-66I54-4. Or, the instabilityof the page; or, the variousnessof the page. Both would serve as appropriate alternative sub-titles for George Bornstein's fascinating project to re-historicizeour understandingof modernist texts. For Bornstein, our privileging of an imagined 'final'version of a text is profoundlymisleadingin that it values text as product rather than as process and, in turn, suppressesthe historicityof such process.Value here is ascribedpredominantlyto what he termsthe 'linguisticcode' of a work, the words themselves, and, Bornstein wants to persuade the reader, the parallel importance of the work's 'bibliographiccode' as a means of situating the workwithin historicalcontingenciesnot availablesolely from those 'final'words making it a function of desire felt by intellect for sense -by a connoisseurialmind for an idealisedobject of masculinevitality'(p. 54).James, also, 'seeksa compromise between differentstylesof receptivity'but he finds a differentkind of counterpartto Pater, namely 'the "woman of genius," [Anne Thackeray Ritchie] who in "The Art of Fiction,"has that power to "guessthe unseen from the seen", a receptivityhe himself cannot claim' (p. 86). Isabel Archer and Maisie are versions of the woman of genius; but Maisie, Matz shows, 'is the best proof that forJames, impressions, despite their reputation, are abstractions,but abstractionswhich require the simplicitywe associatewith (andfigureas)concretion' (p. III). In a fine sequence Matz demonstratesthat the 'female virtue' of Tess 'plays a central role in the definition and reception of the impression, especially with regard to Hardy's argument for social change' (p. 128).In Chapter4, 'The Distant Laborer',Matz turnsto Conrad's preface to TheNigger of the'Narcissus' and argues provocatively that Conrad at the end invokesa 'laborerin a distantfield' when he 'disclaimsthe theory he has been proposing' (p. I47). As with...