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REVIEWS HUGH J. SILVERMAN. Textualities: Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction . New York: Routledge, 1994. xii + 269 pp. Hugh J. Silverman has expressed—throughout the many anthologies he has edited—a constant interest in the theory of interpretation as an independent discipline . The present work is "a kind of sequel"—in Silverman's words—to his previous book, Inscriptions: Between Phenomenology andStructuralism. Therefore , the two studies should be read together as a chronological unfolding ofthe convoluted story of literary interpretation in the twentieth century. Textualities narrates what happens in Continental theory of interpretation, especially after its substantial debts to the philosophy of Heidegger and Derrida. Descriptivism is, therefore, a distinct critical strategy used by Silverman, and one might retain it as particularly helpful in elucidating the complex intersections within the modern philosophy ofthe text. Moreover, Textualities indicates the author's own position within such a multitude ofinterpretive voices. In very broad terms, Silverman embraces a theoretical position somewhere between hermeneutical semiology and deconstruction. Barthes, Blanchot, and Merleau-Ponty would fit into the former theoretical category, while Heidegger and Derrida would represent the latter. Silverman is thus generally concerned with the practical implications ofany textual strategy stemming from the two directions aforementioned, in order to keep critical discourse within the boundaries ofgeneral pragmatics. In fact, what Silverman is proposing goes beyond the need ofpreparing a critical alternative; in the last 50 years, criticism—understood as a general theory ofthe text—has mainly navigated between an objective and a subjective approach to the literary work. The solution then—and this has to be emphasized as a central point in Silverman's discussion—is to make interpretation respond to a legitimate openness. Following Heidegger's concept ofhermeneutics, Silverman wants to avoid the direct exposure ofthe subject through what he sees as the "act oíplacing between" (33). If"hermeneutics is a philosophy ofgo-betweenness" (33), it results that such an enterprise ought to face all the dilemmas raised by a selfcaught in the middle of "otherness." Again, as for Heidegger, the issue at stake in Silverman's book is not to describe, but to relate origins. Creative interpretation aims at "enframing" the work ofart (Gestell for Heidegger also has the meaning ofpoieiri), as it will in the end "uncover" or disclose its limits within the "reality" ofthe text. The activity of revealing the hidden message (hermeneutics) within the space ofthe text (deconstruction ) could be, if not an ideal, at least a comprehensive formula to appease many critical anxieties. (Derrida is obviously using it in his latest inquiries on the "origin" ofsecrets, responsibility, and "the gift ofdeath.") Instead ofemploying the Freudian dichotomy ofconscious and unconscious, Silverman chooses to rely on terms that better respond to the whole domain ofart, such as visible and invisible. The critic is called to inter-vene, to find a place from which to inter-rogate: "Interrogation is asking in the between, in the chiasmatic intertwining ofvisible and invisible, in the place where visibility makes interpretation possible" (37). At this point, one might ask the unsettling question about the degree ofpresence ofthe interpretive self. Will the critic agree to echo the writing subject, or will he merely be the "host" ofthe text? Silverman seems to favor the VcH. 20 (1996): 196 THE COMPAnATIST latter alternative, in which the text "sacrifices" itself through language lest the "reality" ofthe author be confiscated or "enframed" by the reality ofthe written word. As it is for language to represent the absence of the actual self, the text becomes thus "undecidable." One can never serenely decide the identity behind the textual discourse. If any literary work is a space where life in general is staged through a text, then it means that the author is "represented" as well. In this case, the only difference between a "normal" fiction and an autobiographical text is that while the latter performs the epiphany ofthe subject, the former embodies language as a main character. Textualities covers most ofthe spaces surveyed by modern critical thought, and to this realm Silverman dedicates more than half his book. His conclusion to the two parts ofhis book, in what he calls a "juxtapositional deconstructive reading," is a new attempt to bring philosophy and critical interpretation...

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