decon. norris

8/12/2019 Decon. Norris

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Reviews 637off to a prom ising sta rt with A ristotle, then suffers an endless series of in terpreta tiveswerves into error, sometimes redeemed (as at present) by signs of a formalistrevival. B u t th is pos itio n iso ddly co mp romised by Todorov s willingness to cede thewhole do m ain of poetics to a large r, mo re powerful or demystifying rheto ric,belonging to semiotics or th e gene ralized typology of discou rses . His text thu sdoses on a n ote of gra ve resig nat ion . N o sooner b orn tha n poetics finds itself calledupon, by the very power of its results, to sacrifice itself on the altar of generalknowledge. A nd it is no t certain tha t this fate mu st be reg retted .Tod orov s text therefore sta nd s as witness to the conflicts an d divisions prod ucedby the pa st two de cad es of inten se theoretical activity. It s usefulness is twofold,depending on ho w o ne chooses to read To doro v s arg um ents . As a primer onformalist and structuralist jxwtics it brings together a wide range of theories French, Russian, and Anglo-American in lucid expository style. Whatever hisdoubts about the structuralist projection and its over-reliance on linguistic models,Todorov presents a convincing case for its value as part of a larger, more flexibleapproach. On the other hand his text can be read in diagnostic fashion as revealingthe tensions wh ich still exis t in cu rre nt atte m pts to pas s be yo nd formalism a ndstructuralism in the n am e of a textual sem iotics freed from tbeir inbuilt ideologicalconstraints. T hi s shift m ay be seen as politically ch arged (Fo uca ult), or as ma rking akind of liberta rian break with tbe autho rity of structu re (Derrida and Barth es).Todorov s tex t, by its very am biv ale nc e, faces up to question s which ten d to beignored in th e he ad y po st-stru ctur alist wa ke. ^ .

* CHR ISTOPHE R NO RR ISUmv RsrrYOF W A L E Si STrruT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, CARDIFFRe Reading English Edited by PETER W IDDOWSON. (New Accents Series) Lond on

and New York: M ethu en. 1982. x + 2 4 6 pp . 3.95.Deconstruction: Theory and Practice By CHRISTOPHER NORRIS. (New Acc ents Series)L ondo n an d New York: M ethu en . 1982. ix-t- 157 pp . 6.50 (paperbo und295)-Anyone w ho believes tha t literary stu dies are indee d in a serious state m ay well turnto Peter W iddo w son s volum e for an analysis and possible solutions. Th e op eningessays suggest in a promisingly personal way the direct, radical, and historicalengagement the authors of the whole volume wish to make. Unfortunately, thevolume taken as a w hole does not b ea r out this prom ise. In fact, to the exten t th at it isconsciously a volume unified by a common purpose rather than a series of separateessays on a com m on sub ject, th e wea ker pieces have an increasingly conta giouseffect on th e mo re sop histicated ones.Mo st of the essays are w ritten from an explicitly socialist point of view to ma ke thegeneral (and p rope riy imp orta nt) point tb at the whole world of academ ic letters andteaching works within a complex of assumptions which are ultimately social andlargely unexamined. But for persons of reasonable good faith who wish to live anexamined life ther e rem ain s the pr oble m of how far one can know or question oneselfat this rad ical level. H en ce th e theo retical reitera tion of this imp erative is less to thepoint than some concrete critical exemplification might be. But in tbe volume as awhole not only is tbe specific discussion of literature of varying persuasiveness initself but it is usually ancillary to the general ideological point. Even where theparticular li terary case bas been wortb making, i t does not necessarily make the


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eviews 639nates a kind of intellectual stan ce a nd m an ne r ra ther than a single conceptualposition, so that when it is stated as a position it is likely to become inert inproportion as it becomes comprehensible. Dr Norris conveys something of themethod and feel of deconstructionist thinking without any misbegotten attempt toimitateit.An other pro blem is th at it is to such a large extent the single-handed, eveneccentric achiev em ent of Ja cq ue s D errid a, although its impo rtance , if i t has any ,must be of a more general kind. While focusing strongly on Derrida, Dr Norrislocates him in te rm s of key strain s in ea rlier twen tieth-cen tury literary andphilosophical thought and then goes on to discuss his impact on Anglo-Saxon(which in this context means principally American) thinking. In this way Derridahas hisprop er force not merely as an influence irruptin g from a noth er plane, but asthe articulation of dee p and pervasive anxieties abo ut the natu re of literature ,criticism, and language at large. The key figure for locating Derrida in this way isNietzsche, on whom Dr Norris concentrates centrally and helpfully. As we knowfrom certain scientific discoveries that were at first ignored, an ambience ofreceptivity is as important for a new idea as is its clear conceptual formulation.Perhaps the im po rta nc e of D err ida is pa rtly tha t he provided the context for a fullerunderstanding of Nietzsche, even if Nietzsche still provides the standard by whichwe can assess D er rid a s lim itation s. F or it is only within a deco nstructio nistambience that Nietzsche can be truly contemporary. As Dr Norris makes clear, ailthis isa ra th er different thing from influenc e . It is precisely because D errid a is notmerely a disciple of Nie tzsc he, but h as found h is own ro ute and his own term s, th athe isable to provid e, for us, such a fertile co njunction with hi m .

This larger historical grip is manifest throughout as a sense of proportion. DrNorris gives a ge nero us explication of m ost of the writers he m entions bu t, althou ghhissubject could so easily lend itself to the eva sions of the profession2tl aca de m ic, hisown jud ge m en t is alw ays clea r an d to the point. H e is correspondingly alert to thedeadliness of the routines whereby a fresh and unorthodox way of thinking itselfbecomes in turn the fashionable exercise. In the same spirit be brings some tartintelligence to bea r on suc h m att ers as Jo n at ha n G uUer s domestica tion of struc tu-ralism, the su ppo sed de ba te on re alism , an d some aspec ts of D erri da s influence in.America. But the m ost im po rta nt single issue on which to exercise this jud ge m en t isthe relation of deco nstruc tionism to M arxism , on which he seems to me p ersuasive.^ M arxist will na tur all y, even in evitably, use the insights and m ethod s ofstructuralism in a critique of the bourgeois social and cultural order; yet the fullimpact of deconstructionist thinking, which grew out of structuralism, wouldequally undermine the basis of a Marxist world-view. Dr Norris reviews someattempts to reconcile these competing principles and concludes that they areinherently incompatible. He notes in the course of this that Derrida himself hasgenerally refrained from engaging the question of Marxism directly and, whateverimplications we ma y see in tha t for De rrida himself there is surely a perti ne nt lessoninit for the pr ec edi ng volu m e discu ssed in this review. socialist critique th at uses ahighly theoretical argument must be especially careful not to occupy the veryproperty it has con dem ned .

The other large area where readers might wish to have guidance on theimplications of dec onstru ction is Freu dianism . D r Norris gives a passing men tion tothis subject, w hich p resu m ably implies tha t the re is ultimately little significant im pac t~ or tha t crea ting the term s for the discussion would take him too far out of his way.Nevertheless, it would h ave bee n interesting to see in detail wha t kind o fa purc hase the


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