Fictional Structure and Ethics

ELT: VOLUME35:2 1992 Undying Fire—two minor works from Wells's later years which I certainly find more rewarding than Brynhild and The Anatomy of Frustration . Scheick argues that these books masterfully draw the reader away from the customary identification with individual consciousness towards an alternative, collective vision. Perhaps, after all this resistance to the normal expectations of fiction, it is fitting that the final essay in the volume takes an historical rather than a literary approach. Like Huntington's own contribution, Robert Crossley's "Wells's Common Readers" has previously been published in H. G. Wells Under Revision, edited by Patrick Parrinder and Christopher Rolfe (Susquehanna University Press, 1990). It examines the response of the reading public to Wells's books as evidenced by his postbag, and reveals very different priorities at work than those of academic criticism. In particular the moving letters of the Zulu soldier Aaron Hlope testify to the inspirational force of Wells's work—shortly before it was dismissed by Schorer. With "Wells's Common Readers," we come full circle, to Wells the thinker, an important historical figure, not without contemporary relevance , yet plainly no longer a living presence like the Wells of The Time Machine. How much of Wells's work still lives, and for what reasons? Where is the line to be drawn between Schorer's blanket condemnation, Parrinder's judicious rehabilitation and Scheick's more catholic approach ? At what point does bold rejection of conventional literary forms become merely bad workmanship? How far is it legitimate for critics to supply coherence where the author has failed—and might this not just be a way of keeping up academic production by moving it into marginal areas? Critical Essays on H. G. Wells does a commendable job in raising these questions, supplying a variety of possible answers, then leaving readers to move to their own conclusions, something which we can be sure Wells himself would have approved of. Anyone interested in Wells's fiction will find it a rewarding book. Michael Draper Editor of TheWellsian Fictional Structure and Ethics William J. Scheick. Fictional Structure and Ethics: The Turn-of-theCentury English Novel. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990. xviii + 183 pp. $30.00 WILLIAM SCHEICK'S prolific contributions to literary studies are well known and widely valued; and this contribution to the study of ethics in 224 BOOK REVIEWS the novel, even limited primarily to the context of fictional structure, is a welcome addition to the body of ethical studies that do not take a narrow doctrinal approach. Even though some might not agree entirely with Scheick's structured approach, this short volume is worth reading thoroughly for the random insights given, often to concepts not the primary focus of the work being examined. Take for example his comment about Virginia Woolf, given almost anecdotally in a brief discussion of "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown." Woolf unwittingly ... touches on an important, overlooked feature of typical characterization . The characters in a novel by Woolf appear to determine their own motives, and individual perspective emerges as the sine qua non of their creator's artistry. This effect does not actively engage the reader's reaction; it exhibits an integrity of character so complete that the reader is excluded and reduced to a fascinated voyeur. The interior flow of the thoughts and impressions of Woolf 's "open" characters seem to invite intimacy but in fact the reader serves only as witness. Such conclusions, admittedly open to debate, encapsulate volumes of digressive criticism of Woolf by others. Another example: hidden from the hurried reader at the end of a discussion of "Characterization and Ethics" is Scheick's checklist of major themes in the turn-of-the-century novel, which are especially beneficial for those new to the era. Scheick's approach to the age-old question of the primacy of structure over character/ character over structure is two-fold: 1) reader-response criticism that is influenced more by Wolfgang Iser than by Stanley Fish; and 2) the structuralism of Ferdinand de Saussure who argues that, rather than merely a "mechanical ordering device," structure "bears meaning and value because it emerges from a system of options and is...