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The South Central Modern Language Association
Review: [untitled]Author(s): Mark BusbySource: South Central Review, Vol. 7, No. 2, Linguistics and Literature (Summer, 1990), pp. 95-98Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of The South Central ModernLanguage AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3189348
Accessed: 03/06/2010 08:51
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Reviewseviews
which the scholar must prove himself, in Glasgow's words, "the elder to the young-er." In the best coupling of critic and artist,Glasgow states, "the will that creates hascombined with the will that defends, restrains, selects, eliminates, safeguards, and
keeps alive for the future" (168). Raper's collection is a step toward these goals; itspublication will enable other critics, and perhaps Raper himself, the occasion to
question further the contradictory nature of Glasgow's "reasonable doubts."
Mary E. Papke
UniversityfTennessee
Kimberly W. Benston, ed., SpeakingFor You:TheVisionofRalphEllison. Washington,D.C.: Howard University Press, 1987. 438 pp. $21.95.
Robert O'Meally, ed., New Essayson Invisible Man. New York:Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1988. 190 pp. $7.95 (paper).
Alan Nadel, InvisibleCriticism:RalphEllisonand the AmericanCanon. Iowa City:University of Iowa Press, 1988. 181 pp. $21.00.
Ralph Ellison, author of arguably the most important American novel of the
twentieth century, InvisibleMan, has moved back to center stage in discussions ofAmerican literature after a period of eclipse. The appearance of these three books
about a writer who has so far produced only one novel is but one indication of
Ellison's return to prominence. Because Ellison is an African-American writer who
draws from such varied sources as blackfolklore, traditionalAmerican literature,and
his Southwestern past, and who has already broken into the canon, he has become
a central figure in the current controversy about the dominance of white males inthe American canon. In the 1960s and 70s Ellison's staunchly integrationist stance
became the target of black revolutionaries who labeled Ellison an "Uncle Tom." Butit is now clear that Ellison's work transcends temporal political squabbles.
Kimberly Benston's collection provides a comprehensive treatment of Ellison's lifeand work by drawing together unpublished, previously published, and previously
published but updated essays, interviews, and poetry.Part one covers details of Ellison's life from his early years growing up in Ok-
lahoma to his college days at Tuskegee Institute to his arrival in New York City inthe late 30s where he met Langston Hughes and Richard Wright at the beginningof his writing career. The collection includes an updated version of James AlanMcPherson's "Indivisible Man," published originally in AtlanticMonthly in 1970. Inthe updated portion from a 1984 speech at City College of New York, McPherson
praises Ellison for cultivating the "psychological habits that could help make his
countrymen something more than mere expressions of this group or that" (p. 29).The second section focuses on Ellison's first collection of essays, Shadowand Act,
published in 1964, and indicates something of the history of Benston's collection.While it bears a 1987 publication date, Speaking or Youactually appeared in 1988,seemingly long enough after the 1986publication of Goingto theTerritory,Ellison'ssecond collection of essays, for it to be included in this section on Ellison as an
essayist. However, John Reilly's analysis of Ellison's essays, written for this volume,
which the scholar must prove himself, in Glasgow's words, "the elder to the young-er." In the best coupling of critic and artist,Glasgow states, "the will that creates hascombined with the will that defends, restrains, selects, eliminates, safeguards, and
keeps alive for the future" (168). Raper's collection is a step toward these goals; itspublication will enable other critics, and perhaps Raper himself, the occasion to
question further the contradictory nature of Glasgow's "reasonable doubts."
Mary E. Papke
UniversityfTennessee
Kimberly W. Benston, ed., SpeakingFor You:TheVisionofRalphEllison. Washington,D.C.: Howard University Press, 1987. 438 pp. $21.95.
Robert O'Meally, ed., New Essayson Invisible Man. New York:Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1988. 190 pp. $7.95 (paper).
Alan Nadel, InvisibleCriticism:RalphEllisonand the AmericanCanon. Iowa City:University of Iowa Press, 1988. 181 pp. $21.00.
Ralph Ellison, author of arguably the most important American novel of the
twentieth century, InvisibleMan, has moved back to center stage in discussions ofAmerican literature after a period of eclipse. The appearance of these three books
about a writer who has so far produced only one novel is but one indication of
Ellison's return to prominence. Because Ellison is an African-American writer who
draws from such varied sources as blackfolklore, traditionalAmerican literature,and
his Southwestern past, and who has already broken into the canon, he has become
a central figure in the current controversy about the dominance of white males inthe American canon. In the 1960s and 70s Ellison's staunchly integrationist stance
became the target of black revolutionaries who labeled Ellison an "Uncle Tom." Butit is now clear that Ellison's work transcends temporal political squabbles.
Kimberly Benston's collection provides a comprehensive treatment of Ellison's lifeand work by drawing together unpublished, previously published, and previously
published but updated essays, interviews, and poetry.Part one covers details of Ellison's life from his early years growing up in Ok-
lahoma to his college days at Tuskegee Institute to his arrival in New York City inthe late 30s where he met Langston Hughes and Richard Wright at the beginningof his writing career. The collection includes an updated version of James AlanMcPherson's "Indivisible Man," published originally in AtlanticMonthly in 1970. Inthe updated portion from a 1984 speech at City College of New York, McPherson
praises Ellison for cultivating the "psychological habits that could help make his
countrymen something more than mere expressions of this group or that" (p. 29).The second section focuses on Ellison's first collection of essays, Shadowand Act,
published in 1964, and indicates something of the history of Benston's collection.While it bears a 1987 publication date, Speaking or Youactually appeared in 1988,seemingly long enough after the 1986publication of Goingto theTerritory,Ellison'ssecond collection of essays, for it to be included in this section on Ellison as an
essayist. However, John Reilly's analysis of Ellison's essays, written for this volume,
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South CentralReview
does not mention Goingto theTerritory.Part three presents essays on "Myth, Ideology, and Aesthetics" with previously
published pieces by Larry Neal, John Callahan, and Hortense Spillers and a new
essay by Claudia Tate on Ellison's "Invisible Women." Tate's thesis is that thewomen in Ellison's novel-the old slave woman in the prologue, the naked blond
dancer, Mary Rambo, Emma, the anonymous white woman, and Sybil-"assist the
Invisible Man along his course to freedom" and "force him to recognize their
common plight" (p. 164).Part four deals with the complex topic of Ellison's literary ancestry, especially
Richard Wright. Ellison's essay "Remembering Richard Wright" precedes Michael
Fabre's and Joseph Skerrett, Jr.'s discussions of Ellison's problematic relationshipwith Wright. Fabre draws from Ellison's letters to Wright, now held in the Richard
Wright archive at Yale, and Skerrettapplies Harold Bloom's concept of "the anxiety
of influence" to Ellison's "misreading"of Wright.ThenJoseph FranktreatsDostoevski's influence, RobertO'Meally examines Hem-
ingway's, and Charles Davis discusses Ellison's connection with several other Afri-can-American writers such as Charles Chestnutt, Wright, and James Baldwin. Dos-toevski provided not only the underground metaphor, Frank believes, but anattitude toward Russian peasants that corresponded to American whites' attitudestoward blacks. O'Meally traces Ellison's changing opinion of Hemingway fromEllison's early work that attempted to emulate Hemingway's style, to his rejectionof Hemingway's understatement and apparent denial of democratic principles, tohis altered view that Hemingway was indeed a writer who affirmed the ideals of
"libertyand democracy" (p. 253).O'Meally concludes by pointing out such Heming-way allusions in InvisibleMan as the bullfight painting on the bar's wall where thenarratorand BrotherJackdiscuss the Brotherhood.
Part five concerns InvisibleMan and includes John Hersey's interview first pub-lished in Hersey's collection of essays on Ellison in 1974and an updated interviewfrom 1982published here for the first time. Also included is the most important andinfluential recent article on Invisible Man, Houston Baker's "To Move Without
Moving: An Analysis of Creativity and Commerce in Ralph Ellison's Trueblood
Episode" from PMLA,in which Bakerbrilliantly analyzes the Trueblood episode forits Freudian, Christian, and ideological elements. Kenneth Burke's "Ellison's True-
blooded Bildungsroman,/expanded from a letter to Ellison from friend and mentorBurke, takes an awkwardly condescending tone as Burke tells Ellison what he didin his novel.
Robert Stepto's analysis of InvisibleMan from FromBehind the Veil (1979) in which
he defines the two major types of black narratives as "ascent" and "immersion" is
reprinted here. In the ascent narrative an oppressed figure goes to a free environ-
ment (usually North) and achieves freedom. In the immersion narrative a free
protagonist goes South to an oppressed environment where he or she discovers a
type of freedom through gaining "tribal literacy" (363). Ellison's achievement,
according to Stepto, is that he combines the two traditions. The collection concludes
with an extensive bibliography compiled by O'Meally.It is, of course, the same Robert O'Meally who is editor of New Essayson Invisible
Man, which contains five essays along with the editor's introduction. Billed as new
essays in the Cambridge series on the American novel, the collection has one odditythat belies the label. Bemdt Ostendorf's "Ralph Waldo Ellison: Anthropology,Modernism, and Jazz" appeared in a slightly different form in Harold Bloom's
Modem CriticalViews series on Ellison in 1986. While there are some slight stylistic
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Reviews
changes in the essay here, it requires a stretch to call this a new essay. Nonetheless,Ostendorf does a fine job discussing Ellison's connection with the three elements ofhis title, which present a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.
By "anthropology," Ostendorf means Ellison's "ritualtheory of culture, an interestin transformations, and a concern with the dialogic principle" (p. 106) expressed in
language and symbolic action. The fluidity of anthropology's openendedness op-poses the rigidity of a "stem Modernism" (p. %), which requires an almost reveren-tial attitude toward the liberating power of art. Jazz, according to Ostendorf, pro-vided Ellison with a synthesis of fluidity/order, for the jazz artist demonstrates thecorrelation between tradition and the individual talent
Where Ostendorf is interested in general principles, Valerie Smith and John F.Callahan examine Ellison's emphasis on the artist in the novel. Smith, who tends tosummarize episodes from the novel more than necessary, contends that the "char-
acterof the artist in Ellison's nonfiction corresponds to the portraitof the protagonistin InvisibleMan" (p. 26). In his excellent essay Callahan defines the narrator as a
"failed orator"(p. 87) (at the Battle Royal, at the old couple's dispossession, at Tod
Clifton's funeral) who eventually discovers how writing allows him to shape his
articulation and find an audience.
Thomas Schaub's thesis is that "the novel's democratic authority-its capacity to
speak to our culture-derives precisely from its insistent disclaimer of any realityother than its own life 'as a fiction'" (p. 124). In the final essay John S. Wright begins
by pointing out that Ellison was reading Lord Raglan's TheHero as he wrote, and
Wright examines the heroic models and anti-models such as Peter Wheatstraw (a
"demonic spielman"), Trueblood, FrederickDouglass, BrotherTarp,the Zoot Suiters,Marcus Garvey, Rinehart, and especially Louis Armstrong.
The third recent book also concentrates on Ellison's novel, but it is a single-authored work Alan Nadel's InvisibleCriticism:RalphEllisonand theAmericanCanon,
originally a 1981 dissertation at Rutgers, attempts to show how Ellison uses allusionto draw from, challenge, and alter the American literary tradition. InvisibleCriticism
recalls Robert List's Dedalus in Harlem (1982), which analyzed Joyce's impact onEllison and detailed allusions to Joyce in InvisibleMan. As his subtitle indicates,Nadel is concerned with allusions to writers in "the American canon."
The book is divided into three main parts. First, Nadel traces the "origins of
invisibility" by analyzing Southern history to show how post Civil War societyrequired blacks to become invisible. Nadel uses Michel Foucault's Madness andCivilization or an analogy:
The institutionof reasondemanded he invisibilityof unreason,achieved first
through ncarceration,hen segregation,and,finally, nstitutionalization,o thatthe madultimately nternalized heir own invisibilityas the pricefor ostensiblefreedom. The institutionof the Southdemanded he same of its subclass ...
(15)
This topic is much too large to be treated in twenty-six pages; the book would havebeen better served without it.
Next Nadel provides a general analysis of the effect of allusion in a literarywork,
noting that little examination of allusion by literary theorists exists. Drawing fromand taking issue with Northrop Frye, Harold Bloom,Jacques Derrida,George Steinerand others, Nadel attempts to establish his point that writers such as Ellison alter the
meaning of allusions when they become part of the fabric of their work
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Aftera carefulanalysisof the variousallusionssuggested by Tod Clifton(par-ticularly he Christianovertones),Nadel then discusses Elison's connectionswithMelville,Emerson,and Twain andEllison'sattack,Nadelbelieves,on LewisMum-
ford'sbook TheGoldenDayby using Mumford's itle as the name for thebar/brothelin the novel. Althoughmostof Nadel'sdiscussion sjudiciouslypresented,bolstered
by carefulresearch,his assertionaboutEllison'suse of Mumford eemssomewhatforced. In response to Nadel's queries,Ellisonacknowledgeshis awareness and
antipathy orsomeof Mumford'sdeas,but Ellisondoes not suggest thatit was the
primary ource of the bar'sname. Curiously,Nadel buriesEllison'sresponsesinfootnotes rather hanusing themin the text. Despitethesefaults,this is a valuablebook,both for its insightsinto InvisibleManand for itsdiscussionof allusion.
All threeof theseworksadd to a systematically rowingbodyof workon Ellison.
Naturally,InvisibleMancontinues to hold the mostinterest,but Elison's articulate
comments on American ulturehave-alsomade him one of the most importantofAmerican ntellectuals.As a whole these three bookstilttoward one of two majordirections akenin Ellisonscholarship.One directionhasbeen to traceEllison's iesto an African/black/Afro-Americanradition folklore, azz);the other to canonicalworks n western culture(Dostoevski, oyce,T.S.Eliot,Twain,Melville,andothers).WhileRobertO'Meally'sTheCraft fRalphEllison1980) mphasizedEllison'suse ofblack olklore,hisessayin Speakingforou oncentrates n Hemingway's nfluence.
This shift in focus is partially he result of the controversyover the canon. BydemonstratinghatEllison lowsout of the westerntradition, ritics aninsurethatEllison'srecent insertioninto the canon continues. At the same time, of course,
Ellison'sentryaltersand expandsthe canon. Perhapssoon Ellison'ssecondnovelabouttheReverendHickman nd SenatorSunraider/Bliss illappearandelicitevenmoreimportant tudies of one of America'sinest writers.
MarkBusbyTexasA&MUniversity
LeonardButts,TheNovelsofJohnGardner:MakingLifeArtas a MoralProcess.Baton
Rouge:LouisianaStateUniversityPress,1988. 143pp. $9.00.
Thisis the thirdbook-lengthcriticalstudy of JohnGardner ince his earlydeathin 1982. The first of these books, David Cowart'sArches nd Light 1983), s an
extraordinaryverviewof Gardner's euvre;Ibelieve it will provethatrareexcep-tion,a firststudythatcontinuesto be thebestbookon itssubject.Thesecondbook,GregoryMorris'sA WorldofOrder ndLight1984), reatsallof Gardner's ictionbutnot his poetry;less successfulas criticism,Morris'sbook nonetheless offersmanyinterestingdetailsconcerningthe compositionof Gardner'sworks. Now LeonardButtspresentshis analysisof the eight novels publishedduring Gardner'sifetime
and the two posthumousnovels. Buttssuggests that it is time "tobegin a moredetailedcritical valuation han overviewsof thecanonorindividualarticleson thenovelsorstorieswill allow" xix).Thisseems tomea curiousdistortionofwhatButtshas in factdone, for his book offers almostno "critical valuation"; ndeed, Butts
rarelyassessesanythingin Gardner's ovels. He does offerconsistently nterestingreadings,however,and he is especiallyhelpfulin definingthe typicalpatterns hatinform he ten novels.
Aftera carefulanalysisof the variousallusionssuggested by Tod Clifton(par-ticularly he Christianovertones),Nadel then discusses Elison's connectionswithMelville,Emerson,and Twain andEllison'sattack,Nadelbelieves,on LewisMum-
ford'sbook TheGoldenDayby using Mumford's itle as the name for thebar/brothelin the novel. Althoughmostof Nadel'sdiscussion sjudiciouslypresented,bolstered
by carefulresearch,his assertionaboutEllison'suse of Mumford eemssomewhatforced. In response to Nadel's queries,Ellisonacknowledgeshis awareness and
antipathy orsomeof Mumford'sdeas,but Ellisondoes not suggest thatit was the
primary ource of the bar'sname. Curiously,Nadel buriesEllison'sresponsesinfootnotes rather hanusing themin the text. Despitethesefaults,this is a valuablebook,both for its insightsinto InvisibleManand for itsdiscussionof allusion.
All threeof theseworksadd to a systematically rowingbodyof workon Ellison.
Naturally,InvisibleMancontinues to hold the mostinterest,but Elison's articulate
comments on American ulturehave-alsomade him one of the most importantofAmerican ntellectuals.As a whole these three bookstilttoward one of two majordirections akenin Ellisonscholarship.One directionhasbeen to traceEllison's iesto an African/black/Afro-Americanradition folklore, azz);the other to canonicalworks n western culture(Dostoevski, oyce,T.S.Eliot,Twain,Melville,andothers).WhileRobertO'Meally'sTheCraft fRalphEllison1980) mphasizedEllison'suse ofblack olklore,hisessayin Speakingforou oncentrates n Hemingway's nfluence.
This shift in focus is partially he result of the controversyover the canon. BydemonstratinghatEllison lowsout of the westerntradition, ritics aninsurethatEllison'srecent insertioninto the canon continues. At the same time, of course,
Ellison'sentryaltersand expandsthe canon. Perhapssoon Ellison'ssecondnovelabouttheReverendHickman nd SenatorSunraider/Bliss illappearandelicitevenmoreimportant tudies of one of America'sinest writers.
MarkBusbyTexasA&MUniversity
LeonardButts,TheNovelsofJohnGardner:MakingLifeArtas a MoralProcess.Baton
Rouge:LouisianaStateUniversityPress,1988. 143pp. $9.00.
Thisis the thirdbook-lengthcriticalstudy of JohnGardner ince his earlydeathin 1982. The first of these books, David Cowart'sArches nd Light 1983), s an
extraordinaryverviewof Gardner's euvre;Ibelieve it will provethatrareexcep-tion,a firststudythatcontinuesto be thebestbookon itssubject.Thesecondbook,GregoryMorris'sA WorldofOrder ndLight1984), reatsallof Gardner's ictionbutnot his poetry;less successfulas criticism,Morris'sbook nonetheless offersmanyinterestingdetailsconcerningthe compositionof Gardner'sworks. Now LeonardButtspresentshis analysisof the eight novels publishedduring Gardner'sifetime
and the two posthumousnovels. Buttssuggests that it is time "tobegin a moredetailedcritical valuation han overviewsof thecanonorindividualarticleson thenovelsorstorieswill allow" xix).Thisseems tomea curiousdistortionofwhatButtshas in factdone, for his book offers almostno "critical valuation"; ndeed, Butts
rarelyassessesanythingin Gardner's ovels. He does offerconsistently nterestingreadings,however,and he is especiallyhelpfulin definingthe typicalpatterns hatinform he ten novels.
988
