Deadly Lights

Colin MacCabe's Perpetual Carnival: Essays on Film and Literature presents a well-rounded collection of essays, reviews, film writings, biographical sketches, and interviews. With the exception of Shakespeare, most of MacCabe's writings tackle twentieth-century subjects and their role in informing, resisting, and complicating modernism. The strongest writings in Perpetual Carnival include his 2007 tribute to Derek Jarman, his introduction to Bataille's Eroticism, "Modernism as Realism," and the reprinted foreword, "Why Are the Arabs Not Free?" on the legacy of Moustapha Safouan. While the marvelous diversity of subjects can be relished in independent essays, the implications of the overall structure are frequently hazy. Creative reading is suggested—juxtaposing the book's vastly different topics may enact the eponymous perpetual carnival MacCabe alludes to, but less often precisely initiates.