The Other Victorians

[truepenny]

Steven Marcus is annoying me.

Some of this, I know, is simply a marker of how much more sophisticated and self-aware literary criticism has become since 1964. Some of it probably has to do with differences in world-view, caused both by those intervening 40 years and by a simple difference in subject-position. But still, I'm annoyed.

I'm annoyed by his condescending and pitying attitude toward his subjects. I'm annoyed by the way in which he treats fiction, nonfiction, and history as if they were interchangeable (saying that characters out of Dickens can "explain" historically real human beings to us is offensive and a cop-out). I'm annoyed by the unreflective and simplistic way in which he uses the word "perversion," and the equally unreflective and simplistic assumption that his readers will agree with him. I'm deeply annoyed by his textbook Freudianism--although I grant that if you're going to apply Freud directly and without qualification to anyone, the men of the era and approximate culture which produced Freud are the only possible appropriate subjects. (Notice that I said men, not people.)

I find it insulting that Marcus wrote a book about a subject which he plainly believed to be unworthy of intellectual consideration. Again, my reaction is clearly conditioned by the rise of New Historicism and Cultural Studies, but still, I should not be thinking repeatedly as I read, If you find pornography so distasteful and boring, then why are you writing about it?

His subject is fascinating, but his treatment of it leaves much to be desired.

Comments

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you mentioned this, because I had purchased this over abebooks and had just been told that my order had been cancelled because the bookseller's listing was erroneous. Which I had been quite annoyed about, but which I am now quietly pleased.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

It's largely of use if you want to access representative chunks of Walter's My Secret Life without having to trawl through all 6 (highly repetitive) volumes of the paperback reprint of the work itself.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

The whole darn thing is now available online.

http://www.my-secret-life.info/

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I'm really not sure I wanted to know that.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I have my own issues with Marcus (and oh yes, his knowing what people really think and feel is quite high on the list) but fair dos, he was one of the pioneers of the investigation of the historical construction of sexuality. Even if he got it wrong.... And his lack of citations is maddening, the amount of trouble I had to go to to track down the obituary tribute by Paget to Acton that he cites, mutter, mutter. A much better book on Victorian porn (if only because it comes 30+ years down the line and the evolution of more nuanced historical analysis) is Lisa Z. Sigel's Governing Pleasures, which takes on all the really interesting issues about the production and dissemination of pornography absent from Marcus's narrative. It's a wonderful piece of work which I can't recommend too highly.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I remember when it was new and daring. I forget--was he revolted by the My Secret Life guy or just mildly repelled. (Wayland Young was revolted.)

[oursin.livejournal.com]

The line was very much 'I am only looking at this because it is of historical interest': heaven forfend he might find it (or any of the rest of the Victorian smut he analysed) a turn-on.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I didn't make that clear. Young didn't mind the lewdness of it all, but he was repelled by what an uncaring bastard "Walter" showed himself to be.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I know that. I was just venting frustration.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear. I loved that book, read it over and over as an adolescent (mostly for the excerpts), and just snagged my parents' copy on a trip back home. What shall I do if I've outgrown it?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

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