Joyce Between the Lines

book reviews toric life was influenced by descriptions and illustrations in Extinct Animals. Their marginal annotations cover many subjects: British idiom, geological and paleontological terms, historical personages, geographical locations, locales in and near London and in England, literary allusions, and words or names that might not be familiar to a modern reader. These annotations show the same attention to detail as that found in the notes to the recently published nine-volume Oxford Sherlock Holmes (1993). Doyle's main purpose in much of his fiction was to tell a good story, and the fact that more than 60 years after his death the Holmes stories and The Lost World have received such full scholarly treatment in modern, authoritative editions says much about the enduring qualities of his work. As a writer of popular fiction, a teller of stories, Doyle has seldom been surpassed. He would surely be surprised at the attention his best fiction has received in the 1990s. Edward Lauterbach ________________ Purdue University Joyce Between the Lines David Weir. James Joyce and the Art of Mediation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. xi + 234 pp. $44.50 John Whittier-Ferguson. Framing Pieces: Designs of the Gloss in Joyce, Woolf and Pound. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. xv + 197 pp. $45.00 CRITICS HAVE LONG used the terms Joyceans and Joyce industry alternately as labels of distinction and opprobrium, and in many instances both classifications proved accurate. Whether used as perjoratives or honorifics, however, these categories recognized individuals who had devoted a great deal of time and energy to mastering the primary and the secondary sources that make up the contemporary study of James Joyce's canon. One may lament the perceived cliquish tendencies among Joyceans, or one may laud the high level of commitment to their field that such individuals display. In either case, the self-evident fact is that writing about Joyce's works demands a high level of preparation, and those unwilling to commit themselves to mastering the body of criticism that preceded them will be open to harsh assessments of their own work. David Weir's book, James Joyce and the Art of Mediation, offers a detailed view of its author's reading of and response to Joyce's canon. It highlights Weir's skills as a close reader, and it suggests to me that his students at The Cooper Union find in him a dedicated and effective 483 ELT 40:4 1997 teacher. Unfortunately, James Joyce and the Art of Mediation does not establish Weir's commitment to Joyce studies, for the material that he presents and the conclusions that he reaches have too often been anticipated, articulated, and elaborated by scholars who have preceded him. The MLA bibliography, the card catalogue of a university library, the publications list of a press like the University of Michigan's all testify to the enormous number of commentaries already in print on Joyce's life and work. Nonetheless, no critic who lacks a thorough knowledge ofthat material—or at least that portion of the material related to his or her own studies—can avoid rediscovering concepts already brought to light, making mistakes already corrected, or simplifying issues already elaborated in the work of others. While to some such qualifications may sound like the perpetuation of coterie criticism, weaknesses that emerge from a close study of Weir's book justify these reservations. In the opening oÃ- James Joyce and the Art of Mediation and for that matter throughout the work, Weir's study does not contextualize his insights within the canon of secondary material. While his topic focuses on the implications of the epiphanic moment in Joyce's writing, Weir does not seem aware of the complexities surrounding the question of how an epiphany is recognized or even defined. Indeed, although he makes a passing reference to Morris Beja's groundbreaking study in 1971, Epiphany in the Modern Novel, Weir gives it short shrift and seems generally unaware of the work that has appeared since the publication of Beja's book. Weir also seems to have at best an unclear sense of the impact of the methodological groundwork already laid down by other Joyce critics and...