Comparative Literary History Michael J

Criticism Volume 57 Article 10 Issue 4 The Avant-Garde at War

2015 Comparative Literary History Michael J. Griffin II Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Griffin,ich M ael J. II (2015) "Comparative Literary History," Criticism: Vol. 57 : Iss. 4 , Article 10. Available at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/criticism/vol57/iss4/10 “COMPARATIVE The scope of David James’s new study, Modernist Futures, begins LITERARY with a poignant question of inter- HISTORY” est to those scholars invested in Michael J. Griffin II both literary history and criticism: “What does it really mean to con- Modernist Futures: Innovation sider that any given movement may and Inheritance in the also have a replenished moment, a Contemporary Novel by David phase of re-emergence—in another James. Cambridge: Cambridge time, for another culture—through University Press, 2012. Pp. 223. which its promise obtains renewed $95.00 cloth. pertinence?” (1). To begin this inquiry, James suggests redefin- ing the terminal point of literary modernism. James does not view the postwar period or the rise of postmodern experimentation as the last boundary of modernism. Instead, James demonstrates how contemporary novelists, through their complex relationship to modernism and literary inheritance, have become the successors of modernism, suggesting that the project of modernism is not yet finished, thereby offering his readers an example of what “long modernism” may look like (418).1 His contribution thus addresses the charge set forth by Douglas Mao and Rebecca L. Walkowitz in “The New Modernist Studies”— that is, to map the “expansive ten- dency” of modernism as it moves outward in “temporal, spatial, and vertical directions” in creating its canon (737).2 Whereas Mao and Walkowitz’s own survey of this expansion problematically neglects the temporal, the work done by James recuperates this elision;

Modernist Futures clearly articulates unites these chosen authors. Rather how literary historians and schol- than turning toward the postmod- ars in both New Modernist studies ern era’s overreliance on irony, and contemporary literature can parody, or nonlinear page design advance their own critical practices to create self-reflection, these con- by examining the parallels between temporary novelists “reinvigorate modernism and contemporary fic- the novel’s capacity to engage with tion. The comparative nature of this changing socio-political environ- study suggests a rethinking of liter- ments” by returning to modern- ary history as James considers how ist forms of self-interrogation (99). and why “fiction today partakes The following claim, made in ref- of an interaction between innova- erence to McEwan, illustrates this tion and inheritance that is entirely ethics of reading: “He not only consonant with what modernists raises ethical questions diegetically, themselves were doing more than by pursuing the consequences of a century ago, an interaction that characters’ moral errors of judg- enables writers to work with their ment, but also on a hermeneutic lineage in the process of attempting level, as he invites readers at once to new experiments with form” (2). contemplate their own expectations James names these authors as the of fiction itself as a moral medium successors of modernism: Philip and to speculate about the nature Roth, Milan Kundera, Michael of authorial accountability” (144). Ondaatje, J. M. Coetzee, Ian Of course, this critical maneuver McEwan, and Toni Morrison. only enhances what also unites To justify this selection, James these authors, which is their own introduces a concept called “the critical work on modernism, thus ethics of reading” through which complicating notions of literary he seeks to “pinpoint writers heritage. While it may be anath- whose reinvestment in modernism ema to suggest that the contempo- has enabled them to rethink the rary novelist can be also classified very role that rhetorical reflexiv- as modernist, since that very move- ity might play in narratives that ment established itself through its provoke our ethical engagement” own rupture from tradition and (18). How these novelists stylisti- its revolution of literary forms and cally and thematically engage with style, James fashions a link between topics of sexual violence, racial the two by demonstrating the com- injustice, and political oppression plexity of a notion such as inheri- becomes one vehicle that James tance, leaving open the question of uses to articulate the responsibil- whether modernist inheritance is ity that the novel and its readers embraced consistently and know- have to the world at large, and thus ingly by the contemporary novelist. ON MODERNIST FUTURES 693

In a critical work that investi- to reevaluate how Ondaatje, and by gates innovation, it is refreshing to extension other writers, draw upon see James putting into practice such modernist aesthetic movements to a model. Never is this more trans- challenge narrative form. parent than in his chapter “‘The Although inheritance can be perfect state for a novel:’ Michael articulated as a one-to-one rela- Ondaatje’s Cubist Imagination.” By tionship, Modernist Futures rarely investigating cubism in relation to falls back on this pedestrian model. Ondaatje’s novels, he demonstrates Instead, its close readings often that a modernist inheritance is not convey a more complex relation- necessarily a literary one (65–72). ship between contemporary novel- James revives the concept of spatial ists and their heritage. Thus, James form to show how cubism “enables says of McEwan that “his affiliation alternative modes of seeing to carry to literary modernism is one that out certain kinds of politico-ethical he both acknowledges and denies: work, revealing Ondaatje to be sometimes adopting, at other times doing more than aestheticising the parodying, the sentiments and strat- act of observation” (70). Specifically, egies that early-twentieth-century Hana’s bouts of retrospection in The experimenters sought to advance” English Patient (1992) and Anil’s (136), while also claiming that descriptions of the Sri Lankan set- “Coetzee has responded dynami- ting in Anil’s Ghosts (2000) are stellar cally to modernism in ways that examples of how Ondaatje uses cub- resemble disobedience more than ist preoccupations with multiper- reverence, stringently avoiding spectivism, structure, and volume pastiche” (96). These two contrast- to innovate narrative form (84–92). ing reactions to modernism dem- James’s insightful close readings of onstrated by McEwan and Coetzee Ondaatje’s texts demonstrate how not only suggest differing models an attention to form in contem- of literary inheritance, but also porary fiction can reveal a preoc- how that very notion complicates cupation with modernist style and an understanding of influence and methods. Though the relationship the transmission of a literary heri- between the sister arts—writing tage. The chapters on McEwan and and painting—has been examined Coetzee, like the one on Ondaatje, in modernism, James brings an also evoke aesthetic movements, analysis of the interarts relationship impressionism and minimalism, into the criticism of contemporary respectively, as sources of influence, writing. To consider how an aes- though in these chapters James situ- thetic movement from modernism ates them within a literary rather such as cubism has an afterlife in than a visual counterpart. James the contemporary moment means mines the critical scholarship on 694 Michael J. Griffin II modernist figures, specifically Ford have to sacrifice understanding and Maddox Ford and Samuel Beckett, incorporating influence. Within to discuss how minimalist style this comparative reading, James impacts Coetzee’s prose across his fashions a reading of voice, focal- works—from Dusklands (1974) to ization, and character to show how Youth (2002). By using this trian- experimentation does not mean a gular dynamic, James can examine repudiation of prior authors and how the novel becomes a site of text but rather a richer understand- change, recuperating loss and pro- ing of how contemporary novelists voking readers to an awareness of craft their own trajectory through how the inward experience of read- modernist influence rather than in ing can create wider social change. spite of it. The concluding chapter “The conundrums of perception on Toni Morrison, a rich and dense and judgment that lay at the heart analysis of what has been dubbed of literary impressionism” are the “Morrison trilogy” by Justine clearly summoned by the works of Tally—Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992), McEwan, of which James gives par- and Paradise (1997)—examines ticular attention to Atonement (2001) how her challenges to the “read- and Saturday (2005) (136). James ing protocol,” to borrow from maintains through his analysis that Leonard Diepeveen as James does, the generic instability of McEwan’s testify to her inroads into formal writing suggests a further affin- innovation and narrative.3 These ity for modernism, and he seizes instances highlight the “intensity this categorical quality to discuss and ethical importance” of reader how the earlier period often finds participation in the construction of its way into McEwan’s practice, the novel because they transform as McEwan’s fiction clearly draws the intensely personal experience upon practitioners of impressionism of reading into one that encour- such as Ford Maddox Ford, Joseph ages social change (181–83). Here, Conrad, and Virginia Woolf. James deepens a critical under- The transnational and temporal standing of Morrison in relation juxtapositions created in the other to William Faulkner and Virginia two chapters of Modernist Futures Woolf, two authors continually also offer up rich sites for explor- evoked when Morrison’s fiction ing how modernism has been is discussed. Drawing extensively resurrected in the contemporary upon her essays and interview, this moment. A chapter on Philip Roth chapter observes how Morrison’s and Milan Kundera continues identity is intimately invested in an on with the work set forth in the understanding of modernist influ- introduction by articulating how ence, history, and an aesthetics of innovation in narrative does not virtue. ON MODERNIST FUTURES 695

James’s scholarship in Modernist archive to examine why a renewed Futures clearly offers new ways of sense of the modernist project sub- thinking about inheritance and sists in creative and critical works innovation in contemporary novels today. The care and attention he as well as rethinking literary history. pays to sources, specifically the fic- However, the one area in which his tion itself and author interviews, is scholarship seems not to intervene beyond reproach as he casts a wide is in terms of the vertical direction net to cover various avenues of of New Modernist studies as articu- criticism used to inform the schol- lated by Mao and Walkowitz. The arly work he achieves. In order to hypercanonical nature of this proj- articulate a new understanding of ect, with its Anglo-American and modernism and the contemporary, Western European focus, unfortu- Modernist Futures brings together nately overlooks many peripheral two historically situated moments writers and subjects. James situates through their engagement with the modernist project through fig- the turn inward and with experi- ures from Conrad to Beckett, and mentation. The appeal of Modernist his chosen canon of contemporary Futures is sure to be long-lasting as writers are either Nobel laureates or scholars continue to debate mod- ones consistently rumored to receive ernism’s influence and as the canon the award. How would adopt- of contemporary writers continues ing writers less familiarly associ- to evolve. ated with modernism like Sylvia Townsend Warner, Elizabeth Michael James Griffin II is a Marion L. Taylor, or Henry Green transform a Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology where he researches definition of modernism? Similarly, and teaches post-1900 British & American why not locate the modernist legacy literature, visual culture, and textual studies. in the contemporary fiction of Alan Hollinghurst, Lionel Shriver, Lorrie Moore, or Michael Cunningham? NOTES Setting aside these questions, how- 1. Amy Hungerford, “On the Period ever, James presents literary schol- Formerly Known as Contemporary,” American Literary History 20, nos. 1–2 ars and interested academics with (2008): 410–19. a useful and much-needed study of 2. Douglas Mao and Rebecca L. Walkowitz, contemporary literature. Modernist “The New Modernist Studies,” PMLA Futures not only helps to shape a 123, no. 3 (2008): 737–48. burgeoning field of literary study 3. Justine Tally, “The Morrison trilogy,” shaped by a temporal moment but in The Cambridge Companion to Toni advances critical work done on the Morrison, ed. Justine Tally, Cambridge Companions to Literature (Cambridge: key figures it examines. James exca- Cambridge University Press, 2007), vates the annals of the modernist 75–91.