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Studies in American Fiction123 that although Wharton was not entirely successful in breaking free of her culture's ideology about women, she nevertheless was able to address successfully in her novels "matters of intellect and of female sexuality and their consequences that were either invisible or unimaginable or frightening, or perhaps all of these, to the masculine imagination." The chief virtue of Schriber's book is that she provides important insights about the ways in which the ongoing debate in America on gender issues during the nineteenth century affected a given author's portrayal ofhis or her female characters. I wish, however, that Schriber had provided a rationale for having chosen to discuss certain novels by each of these authors while omitting any mention of others. I would also have liked Schriber to have indicated in the text of her study how her interpretation differs from those of other critics, instead of relegating such information to the notes at the end of the book. A more serious shortcoming of this study is that at times Schriber's treatment of her material appears to be somewhat superficial. I found this to be particularly true of her final chapter, which did not include a complete enough analysis of the works discussed to substantiate her claims that Wharton was better able than her male counterparts to create multi-faceted female characters who are neither angels in the house nor villainous dark ladies. Despite these reservations, Gender and the Writer's Imagination provides a useful framework for considering not only the fictional works that are discussed in this study but other fiction as well. Schriber's examination of "sexual poetics" in the fiction of some of America's most influential writers enables us to appreciate more fully the interdependency of cultural attitudes and the individual talent. Skidmore CollegeCharlotte Goodman Reynolds, Michael S. The Sun Also Rises: A Novel ofthe Twenties. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988. 106 pp. Cloth: $17.95. At a recent Hemingway conference, there was general agreement that—as one scholar put it—Michael Reynolds "is doing the best work of any of us." His knowledge and his dedication are impressive. To write his biography The Young Hemingway (1986), Reynolds first tracked down the titles of books that Hemingway either owned or was known to have read (Hemingway's Reading, 1910-1940. [1981]) and worked his way through the international edition of the Herald Tribune for the 1920s. The resulting biography—told in an invitingly conversational voice—became a National Book Award finalist and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. In his most recent book, written for the Twayne Masterworks series, Reynolds calls upon his wide-ranging knowledge to provide an informative and stimulating introduction to The Sun Also Rises. He begins with a carefully selected chronology that underscores themes and patterns running through Hemingway's life. He follows this with three brief chapters that establish historical and literary contexts. The first re-animates the period of the Twenties as it emerged from the Great War and sank toward the Great Depression. The second locates the novel within modernism and indicates its literary importance. And the third traces the history of critical responses to the novel. The main part of the text consists of five chapters under the heading "A Reading." Here Reynolds makes clear that how we read the novel depends on the perspective we bring to it. "Never the same book twice," it is a different novel in the conservative eighties than it was in the turbulent sixties or the depression thirties or the postwar twenties. In place of a reading, Reynolds approaches the novel from various perspectives that provide access to the key issues. As he explains, "I have provided a rough map of the territory with a few areas 124Reviews more detailed than others. The reader was born with his own compass; from here he can find the way on his own" (p. 96). In these five chapters, Reynolds considers the narrator, structure, geography and history, values, and themes of the novel. He shows, for instance, that because Hemingway began the manuscript in medias res but switched to straight chronology in revision, the published text begins with the wrong...

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