The Rule of Money: Gender, Class, and Exchange Economics in the Fiction of Henry James (review)

106 The Henry James Review the foreign, which in die case of James means the Continental European, the French, the Parisian: "Vicariously substituting for the experience of actual travel or residence abroad, die Tourist Fiction almost inevitably incorporates large chunks of travel writing, subtly or odierwise, within me fictional text" (10). FusseU analyzes the modulation of die narrative voice "from fictional narrative to travel-book presentation" (11) widi as much tiioroughness, especially in die chapter on The American, as in the examination of the foreign-language words and expressions. These words and expressions also contribute to satisfying the Tourist Reader's expectations; by creating die iUusion of a conversation in another language, the fictional text further satisfies the desire to experience die foreign vicariously. The end result is a convincing argument for the relation of James's fictions to the popular form of travel writing and a demonstration of how James's fictions both fulfill and make their own use of the expectations of die Tourist Reader. The French Side of Henry James makes a persuasive case for die importance of tilings French to a more complete understanding of the fictional work of Henry James. It is unfortunate that diere is a paucity of scholarly apparatus in such an odierwise fine book (there are no page references for any of the quotations from James's fiction). There is, however, an excellent index, listing useful terms in addition to proper names. Pierre A. Walker University of Minnesota, Duludi Peggy McCormack. The Rule of Money: Gender, Class, and Exchange Economics in the Fiction of Henry James. Ann Arbor/London: UMI Research P, 1990.119 pp. $39.95. How much weight and currency can Henry James's economic imagery bear? Its frequency is unmistakable, as die critics have not faded to register. Indeed, Peggy McCormack sees her study initiating a third phase of investigation, foUowing die early formaUst readings tiiat called attention to me economic motif in James's image patterns, and the later Marxist discussions of the particular cultural context in which James uses these economic terms. Her own emphasis is on "the psychological and cultural meanings of this ... imagery as it develops into a distinct pattern over James's ... writing career." She claims, to begin with, tiiat "all Jamesian fictions operate as exchange economies," and second tiiat "permutations in [their] operation ... reflect James's responses to events in his career." It is demonstrable as well that after 1895, a crisis-period in James's life, the imagery becomes not only more complex but also merapeutic. In otiier words, for Peggy McCormack the cash nexus is a divining rod by means of which die depth of James's economic education can be plumbed. Does it work? Yes and no. The close reading of a handful of texts is skiUful and iUuminating, and enough evidence is certainly adduced to show the alterations—over the years!—in James's use of economic language. But the developmental pattern teased out and die significance attributed to it are less convincing, in part because mey seem artificially induced. Moreover, contemporary theorists—from Barthes and Baudrillard to Irigaray, Kristeva, and Moi—are called in almost ritualistically as autoritative guides to James's meaning even when that meaning is hardly in question. For example, after quoting from Portrait about Osmond and "pose," McCormack's comment is that he "corresponds to die 'counterfeit sign in die classical epoch of simulation' described by Jean Baudrillard in The Mirror of Production." She goes on to explicate BaudriUard further in order to make the point mat Osmond's is a "counterfeit nobiUty" whereas Book Reviews 107 Claire de Cintré's is real. But is Baudrillard reaUy necessary? Nevertheless, McCormack's extended comparison of The American and The Portrait of a Lady in her second chapter yields fruit, coming as it does after she has oudined die parameters of her argument and its main diesis—mat in die capitalist societies depicted by James his characters are shown as "practicing whatever form of commodities transaction diey can afford." This means "displaying their human assets as cultural commodities," witii the emphasis on human, diat is, on assets not assignable to eidier sex. For one of McCormack...