By the Rivers of Babylon: Heinrich Heine's Late Songs and Reflections by Roger F. Cook (review)

paratively brief, seems surprising in light ofthe cautionary comment in his introduction that the novel itself should come before theory. Even so, Doody's attention to the complexity of particular novels sometimes seems subordinated to the march ofargument. On the other hand, the reader is unlikely to lose herselfentirely in the by-ways of theory. In what may be a peculiarly fitting omission, the volume does not include a comprehensive bibliography. Although this lack ofscholarly apparatus is annoying, one is, as a result, never unaware of the materiality of Doody's own book. To locate a title or publication date, the reader must flip back page-by-page through a series ofchapter footnotes. That said, I come to the characteristic of Doody's work that I most enjoyed: his enthusiasm for, even devotion to, the genre he studies. Doody is convinced of the primacy and value ofthe novel: "The novel has been many things throughout its history, but it has never been just another literary type__ The novel has been, as Lionel Trilling said, the chief agent of our moral imagination, the form that more than any other has taught us the virtues ofunderstanding and forgiveness" (1). Among Other Things certainly does not lack rigor, but it avoids the kind of critical distance that too readily becomes aloofness or imperial command of the subject matter. I may have wanted more lingering and detailed discussions ofparticular instances, but Doody never fails to respectand honor the authors and novels he takes up. Even the rush from one example to another has an appealing exuberance about it — an eagerness to add this, and this, and this. Among Other Things is a study for specialists. Without a thorough grounding in the history of the novel and its accompanying criticism, as well as familiarity with a broad spectrum of European and American texts, students would find Doody's argument hard going. Nevertheless, in reconfiguring the ideal ofrealism that he sees as fundamental to the novel, Doody realigns traditional and contemporary approaches to the genre in provocative ways. % Roger F. Cook. By the Rivers ofBabylon: Heinrich Heine's Late Songs andReflections. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998. 399p. Eva Ludwiga Szalay Weber State University As a major German poet who became influential in almost all the national literatures of Europe, yet resisted in his homeland until well into the post-World War II era, Heinrich Heine remains today, albeit in different ways, the quintessential outsider: despite his considerable presence in Western literatures, he is relatively 88 * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW + FALL 1999 unknown to the broader reading public. And although Heine has been the focus ofconsiderable scholarly interest over the last thirty years, elements of his oeuvre remain barely investigated to date, most notably, his late-period post-1848 writings . In By the Rivers ofBabylon: Heinrich Heine's Late Songs andReflections, Roger Cook addresses these lacunae, providing material both novel and provocative: novel, because Cook's readings highlight a more consistent and coherent philosophical point ofview behind the poet's enigmatic and often darkest poetry, and provocative, because his thesis regarding a key shift in Heine's views on history in the late works runs counter to the current ofscholarship to date. While some ofthe historical and biographical contextualization in Part I is not new, this portion ofthe investigation offers useful insight into the poet's crisis of 1848, and details how Heine's thinking on religion, philosophy, and poetry reflect a paradigmatic shift: namely, what has commonly and often onlyvaguely been referred to as Heine's "return." While there is general consensus that Heine repudiated certain former philosophical allegiances and acknowledged a personal God, the precise nature ofthis "return" remains a point ofcontention among scholars, particularly among those intent on portraying Heine as social critic and political revolutionary. By tracing the development of the young poet into a thinker who throughout his late writings warned against a philosophical tradition that legitimizes the intellect's preeminence over the body and over practical reason, Cook gives a lucid account of Heine's increasingly critical positioning vis-à-vis Marx; the radical socialists, particularly the Left Hegelians; Hegel; and Enlightenment notions ofan objective idealism capable ofabsolute knowledge. Importantly for his...