The Contingency of Theory: Pragmatism, Expressivism, and Deconstruction by Gary Wihl (review)

HUMANITIES 159 and textuality. But even here the overriding problem is that the world of story (what really happened) can be inferred only from the discourse that presents it. The only concrete surety is text, for story and narration are always products of abstraction and reconstruction. But text is mute until the interpretive process begins. So when one moves to the fourth level, that of textuality, which comprises the interactions among the first three levels, one is even further removed from the so-called reality of story, from a content, moreover, that can only be conveyed in textual form. This, of course, is not O'Neill's dilemma alone; it is the dilemma of our postmodern condition. Nevertheless, his discussion of the quaternary model is innovative and illuminating, as is his discussion of story-time, discourse-time, order, tempo, frequency, focalization, and verbalization. His discussion of the ventriloquism effect, however, does not go significantly beyond Booth's Rhetoric of Fiction, a book that is mentioned in passing but insufficiently acknowledged, given O'Neill's dependence on two of its key terms: the implied author and the unreliable narrator. Though charted differently, the narratological terrain that O'Neill explores is quite familiar to those who remember Booth's ideas concerning dramatized and undramatized narrators, observers and narrator-agents, scene and summary, commentary , self-conscious narrators, distance, inside view, and so forth. Moreover , Booth provides extended examples and detailed readings, whereas O'Neill makes only desultory references to literary examples and provides little in the way of sustained textual analysis. One also notices the virtual absence of Mikhail Bakhtin, whose thoughts on dialogism, polyphony, and so forth would seem to be relevant to O'Neill's concerns. These reservations notwithstanding, Fictions of Discourse is a valuable contribution to narrative theory. For the generalist, the book provides, in its early pages at least, a reasonably reader-friendly introduction to the sophisticated terminology surrounding narratology. For the specialist, the book goes well beyond this introductory function and forges its own perspective on the vast and daunting field that is contemporary narrative theory. (GREIG HENDERSON) Gary Wihl. The Contingency of Theory: Pragmatism, Expressivism, and Deconstruction Yale University Press. xiv, 215. $44.95 cloth The title of Gary Wihl's The Contingency of Theory: Pragmatism, Expressivism , and Deconstruction cues its readers to the important influence of Richard Rorty on Wihl's work. Rorty's belief in the 'contingent character' of inquiry, and in the powerful effect our times, community, and intellectual tradition have on the way we approach questions of knowledge , informs much of Wihl's argument. He is intent on uncovering 'how 160 LETTERS IN CANADA 1994 personal and collective convictions may arise from the study of literature.' Further, his study aims to deepen our understanding of the way prominent theorists see our methods of reading and interpretation as constitutive of 'social coherence,' of 'pluralist, democratic culture,' and as being capable of preserving 'local forms of understanding' over 'universalist vocabularies.' These concerns are inherently political and ethical, since they assert that our understanding of ourselves and our chosen social bonds are not merely selfish, individual accomplishments. By choosing to address a text - and by analogy, society - in a certain way, we experience 'a moment of choice and affirmation,' which shapes our own identity while acknowledging the value of the 'plural nature of modern society.' Wihl makes use of literary, philosophical, and political sources to convey his sense of the demands and rewards of pluralism. He is particularly interested in the slight influence Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor has had on literary discussions, and argues that Taylor's oeuvre offers a rich ground for linking. our use of 'language to the construction of human identity.' In his most captivating chapter, Wihl uses Stanley Cavell's reading of Othello to evoke the dangers of scepticism - the possibility, in Cavell's terms, of 'extreme withdrawal and failed linguistic understanding.' Wihl wonders, following Cavell, which 'forms of language are strong enough to return the speaker to social life.' In a related discussion of Stanley Fish's reading of Coriolanus, Wihl examines the possibilities inherent in the tragic narrative for examining the 'exact performative procedures that determine acceptance by and exile...