Interlocutors, Interpellants, Interpreters, Interpretants

Errata In volume 24, no. 2 (Spring) 1994, in the review essay by Robert White, Interlocutors, Interpellants, Inte1preters, lnterpretants, part of the quotation on page 129 from William Styron was missing. The sentence correctly reads as follows: Styron rather casually observes that "early on I was struck by the impression that our hero was a madman. A singularly gifted and intelligent madman, but mad nonetheless." (441) Also, on page 129, the sentence Given such convictions about the so-called facts in the Nat Turner case, it was presumptuous, of foolish (mad?), for Styron to undertake to write sympathetically about such an unsympathetic character. should read Given such conv1ct10ns about the so-called facts in the Nat Turner case, it was presumptuous, or foolish (mad?), for Styron to undertake to write sympathetically about such an unsympathetic character. Canadian Review of Amencan Studies Volume 24, Number 2, Spring 1994, pp. 127-134 Interlocutors, Interpellants, Interpreters, Interpretants Robert White 127 William Styron. The Confessions of Nat Turner. Vintage International Edition. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. Albert E. Stone. The Retum of Nat Turner: History, Literature, and Cultural Politics in Sixties America. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992. Even though Vintage has recently brought out a twenty-fifth anniversary edition of The Confessions of Nat Turner, and even though Samuel Coale's 1991 William Styron Revisited argues that, even if Styron failed to overcome certain problems posed by his choice of a first-person narrative, "the Confessions of Nat Turner remains a powerful novel in its own right" (102), it seems that the angry attacks launched by those Ten Black Writers who published , in 1968, under the editorship of John Henrick Clarke, William Styron's Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond were opening salvos in a campaign that has by now pretty much driven the Virginia-born novelist from the field where the prize was the right, the 'privilege,' to define and characterize the leader of the violent 1831 slave rebellion. What is more, it now seems that the controversy over Styron's fourth novel, The Confessions, presaged a dimming of his once-glimmering literary reputation, fostered a critical climate in which many readers, if they could be bothered to consider the matter, would be likely to smile condescendingly at the assertion with which Coale concludes his book: 11 Sophie's Choice is a masterful, passionate vision, one filled with all the ambiguities and uncertainties that such dark visions can conjure up. The promises of Lie Down in Darkness are here realized, and the confessions of William Styron have reached their present fulfillment"( 134). 128 Canadian Review of Amerzam Studies Styron has continued to collect honours and prizes: he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1987, and was the recipient of the MacDowell Medal in 1988. He was the focus of journalistic attention in the late 1980s when he admitted that he had been hospitalized for clinical depression , and his 1990 account of his illness, Darkness Visible, almost immediately achieved best-seller status. In some advanced American academic circles, however, Styron's name is something of a shibboleth, and his book about Nat Turner has suffered erasure, has been scratched from the racing card. The recent Columbia History of the American Novel (1991), for example , mentions Styron's name nowhere in its 905 pages. The most recent MIA International Bibliography (1992), which includes the Albert Stone book to be discussed later, picks up a 1981 article on The Confessions published in an eastern European journal, but the four other Styron items are about other texts. The 1991 volume notes a single article on Sophie's Choice, plus a dissertation on Truman Capote's In Cold Blood which compares it, inter alia, to The Confessions of Nat Turner. The 1990 volume notes one dissertation on Styron, three articles on Sophie's Choice, a brief essay on Darkness Visible, an article on the French reception of Styron, and one comparing The Confessions to a novella which would eventually form part of Sherley Anne William's novel, Dessa Rose. The 1989 volume lists an article on French influences on Styron, a German study of Styron's treatment of the father-image, a...