Sexualizing Power in Naturalism: Theodore Dreiser and Frederick Philip Grove by Irene Gammel (review)

HUMANITIES 369 Dick affixing the flag draws the note that he is the first sighter of the whale [469-70], an anticipation of 'wallowing in the Sargasso Sea' [667] produces only geographical elucidation, and an evocation of Graham Greene's 'two careers' brings unhelpful news that he was 'a prolific writer' [593-4]). That Grace feels 'Gethsemane' needs explaining [397] is doubtless rp.erely a reminder that it is later than we think. Given the sheer volume of material that demanded annotation, the wonder is not that Grace occasionallynods, but that she has been able to track down and get right as much as she has. Similarly, the editing here is for the most part impeccable, the sequential ordering and the estimation of tmdated missives intelligently and persuasively handled. Again, there is the odd slip-up: letter 134 is marked as from Dollarton and dated April 1940 (it can't be both: probably the date is wrong), letter 235 is almost certainly out of sequence, and the famous 1946 letter to Jonathan Cape about Under the Volcano is too precisely pinioned for a work composed over weeks, not two days (as internal references alone to 'taking such a long time' in writing make clear). In a different vein, Grace ignores the obvious reporting of news to Gerald Noxon in September 1943 that 'we have made the acquaintance of a magician' and perpetuates the notion that Lowry met occultist Charles Stansfeld-Jonesin 1941. Nonetheless, giventhat this bulkyvolume contains 270 letters, three or four such lapses are very small potatoes indeed. Oile of the reasons Sursum Corda! is an excellent editing job is that Grace is the sharpest of Lowry critics, a place she affirms once more in the introduction to this volume. Her reading of the semiotics of a Lowry letter alone would mark this as a significantpiece of criticism, but her remarks on the cormection between fiction and letters in Lowry, on his need to relate to others in writing, on his fears of assimilation are all strong contributions to our understanding ofman and writer. As Grace points out, Lowry viewed the written as 'static, a piece of death'; yet he was compelled to write, to 'keep in touch,' as an essential act of life. It is a, perhaps the, quintessential Lowryan contradiction, and we can be grateful to Grace for illuminating and illustrating it with this impressive edition. It is a major achievement: one awaits the second and concluding volume eagerly. (F.}. ASALS) Irene GammeL Sexualizing Power in Naturalism: Theodore Dreiser and Frederick Philip Grove University of Calgary Press 1994- 262. $24-95 'I can't stand the man,' wrote Frederick Philip Grove to Carleton Stanley in May 1946 to explain his opinion of Theodore Dreiser. Grove's antipathy notwithstanding, Irene Gammel convincingly documents many parallels among their novels, and astutely connects their use of naturalist conventions to common European sources. Spanning four decades, three cultures, 370 LETTERS IN CANADA 1995 and two continents, her book uses Grove's and Dreiser's fiction as an instructive case study of the way conventional naturalism has evolved in its treatment of sexuality and power. Through a use of Foucauldian and feminist theories, Gammel goes beyond the limits of Zola's hereditary determinism to encompass alternative European and North American con-_ ceptions of naturalism in the decades straddling the turn of the century, and investigates the different ways naturalism was deployed in Canadian and American literature. Repeatedly Grove and Dreiser are shown to disrupt naturalistconventions, thencreatenewnorms thatessential1y serve the conventional- that is, patriarchal - social order. To this end, Gammel examines a revealing selection of texts: Fanny EssIer, Mauermeister Ihies Haus, A Search for America, The Master of the Mill, Our Daily Bread, and Settlers of the Marsh by Grove; and Dreiser's Sister Carrie, 'Emanuela,' the Cowperwood trilogy (especially The Titan), and The 'Genius.' The merits of Garrunel's study of naturalism, sexuality, and power are considerable. The impressive range ofher research is suggested by the four 'select' bibliographies withwhichshe concludes the book, eachso extensive it is truly comprehensive. Throughout the book she excels at placing Grove's German works in context, and is especially adept at outlining the subtleties of...