248 Reviews Having established a complex theoretical frame, McLaughlin proceeds with a seriesof fertileand suggestive case studies encompassing some of Edgar Allan Poe's stories, Stevenson's South Seas fiction, 'paper language' inMelville (primarily 'Bartleby'), the plethora of paper in Bleak House, and the role of the ballad sheet in The Mayor of Casterbrzdge. In each instance he offersstimulatingnew perspectives, as, forexample, inhis historyof colonial paper money as a context forPoe, his notion of theTreasureIsland map as a vanishing copy of a lostoriginal, or hisDeleuzian version of 'Bartleby' as an exercise in 'virtuality'.In thenew market forreading, thework of art 'sinks' into the readership via a mass medium fromwhich it wishes tobe distinguished a scenario scrupulously examined byAdorno, yetunaccountably absent from McLaughlin's roll-callof theorists. Papenwork offers many fascinating sidelights,such as the relation of the Augustan figure of financial 'imping' to Stevenson's 'The Bottle Imp', or theHegelian quality of the treatmentof infectionand homelessness inBleak House; and overall hemakes a convinc ing and cogent case fora reconsideration of the role of paper inour understanding of literaryproduction. A caveat with regard to this structure,however: the connections between discrete textsare not always apparent to the reader; and some of the readings are short-winded and gestural damagingly so in the case of a weak and unfocused treatmentof Hardy. Indeed, it is a curious feature of Paperworkthat some of themost interestingpoints are consigned to the voluminous footnotes,where the argument is often teased out and supported with considerable elan. The readermay feel, therefore, a littleshort-changed by this manner of proceeding. Nevertheless, McLaughlin offers here a finelyhoned and livelyguide to the role of paper in literaryproduction at this crucial point in themodern age. LOUGHBOROUGHUNIVERSITY ROGER EBBATSON Ritual Unbound:ReadingSacrifice in ModernistFiction.By THOMASJ. CousINEAu. Newark, NJ: University of Delaware Press. 2004. I92 Pp. [27.95. ISBN:0-874I3-85I-5. In Violenceand the Sacred (originallypublished in French in I972) Rene Girard offered a reading of Oedipus Rex in terms of the communal practice of scapegoating. Ritual Unbound takes thisas itsstartingpoint foran engagement with modernist fiction. In his Introduction Cousineau claims that 'modernist works come unambiguously to the defense of theirprotagonists,whom they invariably regard as victims of societal preju dices' (p. 6). This isnot exactly a world-shattering claim; nor does it seem specific to modernist fiction Tom _ones, TheMill on the Floss, J7ane Eyre come readily tomind. Cousineau offers to demonstrate this claim by attending to the 'mythic substrata' beneath 'ostensibly realistic adventures' (p. I5) in fiveshort canonical modernist texts: The Turn of theScrew,Heart of Darkness, The Good Soldier,The GreatGatsby,and To The Lighthouse. In each case he attends to the relationship between theprotagonist and his or her community,but also to the relationship between theprotagonist and the reader: the 'communityof interpretation',he suggests,has itsown scapegoating practices. Thus the narrators of theworks examined, while 'taking the side of these victims against their persecutors', often 'encourage the community of readers ... .] to direct itsown scape goating impulses against other targeted figures' (p. I7). YES, 37, 2007 249 Cousineau does not engage with late nineteenth-century anthropological ideas. Neither does he engage with thenature ofmodernism and theplace of anthropological ideas in itsdevelopment: he simply asserts that theworks he discusses are 'quintessen tially modernist' because of 'theirdefense of a solitaryprotagonist who has become the targetof communal violence' (p. I7).There isno sense ofmodernism beyond thisscape goatingmodel, and no furtherengagement with scapegoating in relation to modernism. Instead, Ritual Unbound offersa close reading of five selected fictions: this isboth its strengthand its limitation.The first chapter focuses on thegoverness's belatedness and the frame-taleof competing storytellerstoconcentrate on rivalryas thekey to The Turn of theScrew.There is a close attention to textual detail, and Cousineau also lightly sketches in some suggestive contexts: James's humiliation at the reception of Guy Domville, and the 'trials forwitchcraft' evoked by James in his Preface. The second chapter begins by putting a positive spin on Chinua Achebe's criticism of Heart of Darkness,pointing out that 'theanxieties that shapeMarlow's narrative are of a collec tive rather than a merely individual nature' (p. 63). Cousineau then argues thatdiffer ence rather than 'race' is 'the crucial element...