Précis

ELT 48 : 3 2005 Implicit in Carruth's and others' quiet confidence in Lawrence is an encouraging faith in his creative achievement. Perhaps what is most needed, by Scherr as well as by the age he decries, is more of Lawrence's own irrepressible and disinterested hopefulness. Sheer rage, as Scherr's work inadvertently obliges us to realize, will not accomplish the resurrection of Lawrence's reputation, nor of anyone else's, for that matter. MATTHEW LEONE Colgate University I Précis I Heidi Hanrahan University of North Carolina, Greensboro Attridge, Derek, ed. The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce. 1990; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ν + 290 pp. Cloth $65.00 Paper $22.99 In "Reading Joyce," his own contribution to the second edition of this volume, Attridge discusses the unique challenges and pleasures of working with Joyce's texts. By now, he explains, they are so woven into our culture that they "constantly remake themselves as history moves inexorably on, and all our projects of explanation and interpretation get caught up on the turn in this changing web, producing yet more transmutations in the very texts they are trying to pin down." This collection of essays embraces Attridge's sentiment, working to give readers an introduction to the multitude of important topics, issues, and themes in Joyce studies. New to this edition are three essays reflecting changing critical concerns: "Joyce and Sexuality," by Joseph Valente; "Joyce and Consumer Culture ," by Jennifer Wicke; and "Joyce, Colonialism, and Nationalism," by Marjorie Howes. Also especially interesting is Garry Leonard's essay on Dubliners, in which he argues that critics ought to focus on the "gaps, silences, elisions, displacements , and moments where meaning falters" in the stories, rather than trying to "fill in the gaps." Other notable essays include Jean-Michel Rabaté's "Joyce the Parisian," Christopher Butler's "Joyce the Modernist," and Vicki Mahaffey's "Joyce's Shorter Works." The volume ends with a helpful list of recommended further reading. In total, the collection serves as a useful introduction to Joyce, his works, and his world. 382 BOOK REVIEWS Dawson, Terence. The Effective Protagonist in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel: Scott, Brontë, Eliot, Wilde. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004. ν + 300 pp. $99.95 In this provocative book, Dawson offers exciting new readings of four nineteenth-century British novels. Using post-Jungian literary criticism and methodology, he argues for the importance of what he calls the "effective protagonist ," a seemingly minor character whose crucial function is overlooked yet who ultimately "determines both the critical and psychological coherence of the entirety of the novel in question." Part One looks at two male-authored novels, Ivanhoe and The Picture of Dorian Gray and identifies Scott's Cedric of Rotherwood and Wilde's Lord Basil as their respective effective protagonists. In each text, Dawson writes, "the effective protagonist is faced by an implicit challenge to modify a misplaced attachment to his 'anima,' that is, the personification of his instinctive attitude towards the feminine." Part Two focuses on women- authored texts, Wurthering Heights and Silas Marner, and argues that both works are concerned with what Jung would call "animus possession." In the chapter on Eliot's book, Dawson argues that reading Nancy Lammeter as the effective protagonist helps us make sense of the novel's connections not only to Eliot, but also to her other works. He explains that such a reading shows us that Silas Marner's theme is "surprisingly pertinent to the impasse in which George Eliot found herself in 1860, and concerned with many of the same themes that are found in her other novels." Most impressive, though, is the chapter on Wurthering Heights, in which he illustrates how Catherine Linton is the effective protagonist. Following this line of thought, he argues that Bronte's work is "one of the most extraordinary, heterogeneous, polyvalent, and disturbing narratives ever written." Dawson's careful employment of Jungian analysis yields fascinating new interpretations of these works and encourages readers to use similar strategies in examining the psychological and structural complexities of the novel. Dellamora, Richard. Friendship's Bonds: Democracy and the Novel in Victorian England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. 252 pp. $47.50 In this ambitious...