Open Secrets: Literature, Education, and Authority from J.-J. Rousseau to J. M. Coetzee by Michael Bell

Abstract

MLR, I03.4, 2oo8 I095 ner' s 'Portrait of theTranslator as Chameleon', on theother hand, is a patchwork of quotations where the exercise in rhetoric seems toconstitute an end in itself.Included in the section on 'Historical Perspectives', Christophe Declercq's paper on Belgian refugees inBritain during theFirstWorld War is an interesting ifratheroddly placed contribution, dwelling only marginally, as itdoes, on translation, and diverging en tirely from the textual and literary focus of the volume. Apparently more inkeeping with the overall theme of the collection isElena Xeni's examination of theproblems pertaining to the translation of figurative speech. Her report is based on an applied project comparing thedifficultiesencountered by experienced translators and trainees when facedwith translating intoGreek selected passages fromSue Townsend's The Secret Diary ofAdrian Mole, Aged I33/4. Unfortunately, however, the article would have greatly benefited from close editorial attention. This last observation could be applied to the volume as a whole: amore rigorous editing process could have eliminated a number of linguistic problems and evened up thequality of the contributions. As itstands, thecollection lacks homogeneity but stillmanages to offer amix of bright ideas, specialist information, and unexpected curiosities. UNIVERSITY OFWARWICK LOREDANAPOLEZZI Open Secrets: Literature, Education, and Authority fromY.-J.Rousseau toJ. M. Coet zee. By MICHAEL BELL. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2007. vii + 254 pp. ?50. ISBN 978-O-Ig-92080g-8. The 'open secret' in this difficult study,both tentative and assertive, concerns what is imparted in teaching, and what cannot be imparted. The book's arguments foran education which, as humanistic, is aware of the limits of the teachable, and not inter ested in education as something quantifiable, are admirably sharply expressed, and are quietly fearful thatglobal uses ofEnglish and the increase of computer translation 'will completely change thehuman relation to language [. . ] to render impossible an older conception of poetry' (p. 215). Early, admirable chapters examine textswhose theme is education, presented from the point of view of the educator, not the pupil: Rousseau's Emile, Tristram Shandy, Wieland's History ofAgathon-an unfamiliar text interestingly commented on-and two chapters on Goethe, on Wilhelm Meis ter'sApprenticeship and Wilhelm Meister's Journeymanship. The last chapter in this firstpart discusses Nietzsche. While these chapters are good, ifa little inconclusive, each having discussions of theBildungsroman which are sensitive and scholarly, in the second half the tone changes, with chapters on D. H. Lawrence, F R. Leavis, and J. M. Coetzee togetherwith his fictional alter ego, Elizabeth Costello. Michael Bell reads Lawrence as an equivalent, within an English tradition,ofNietzsche, andwould align discussion of Lawrence with suggestions of the importance of Leavis, focusing on his stress on teaching and reading as 'heuristic'. Though there is good reason to welcome a freshattempt at evaluation of Leavis, the discussion here seems slightly disappointing. Seeing Lawrence inNietzschean terms educes a humanist Nietzsche who reads less incisively than he might: itdoes not seem enough to define ressenti ment as 'the desire to take revenge on the past' (p. I47); and itmay be questioned whether Nietzsche on thewill should be read inBell's humanistic terms. Problems about seeing Lawrence as anything like an equivalent toNietzsche may be compared with Lawrence's lack of relation toFreud, which Bell is silent on. Bell would align Leavis with Heidegger. The politics of thisapart, this seems prob lematic: how can Leavis's humanistic concern with the single author who intends meaning (Bell quotes finesections fromLeavis here) be compared with thewriter for Io96 Reviews whom humanism must be set aside, and-in The Origin of the Work of Art-the con cept of the individual imagination? Derrida's pervasive critique ofHeidegger as too interested in defining Being as presence (but Derrida isneglected in this study) sug gests that Heidegger needs tobe read asmore post-humanist thanLeavis orLawrence. If Leavis were to be characterized as Heideggerian, it could be by a reading of his work which found places where Leavis differed fromhimself,making a deconstruc tive reading possible. The point holds with Lawrence: Bell's fine, impassioned pages confirm the 'traditional' Leavis view of Lawrence, rather than attempting to read Lawrence anew, differently from the older I950S and 9g6osarguments. They stake out the familiar ground again. Bell gives insufficient...