Narrative ethics /

In the wake of deconstruction, literary criticism is turning increasingly toward an "ethics of reading" (J. Hillis Miller), an "ethics of fiction" (Wayne Booth), and an "ethics of criticism" (Tobin Siebers) in its critical gaze into textuality. Newton goes beyond Miller, Booth, and Siebers to interrogate the identity of narrative acts and ethical acts. Using the dialogics of Bakhtin, Levinas's philosophy of intersubjectivity, and Cavell's philosophy of ethical agency, Newton (Univ. of Texas at Austin) analyzes three levels of narrative as ethic: narrational ethics, which concerns the "formal design of the storytelling act"; representational ethics, which explores "the sea change wrought when selves become either narrating or narrated"; and hermeneutic ethics, which examines "the extent and knowledge in persons' reading of each other, and the ethical price exacted from readers by texts." Newton offers elegant, provocative readings of texts ranging from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to Winesburg, Ohio, The Remains of the Day, and Bleak House. Unfortunately, jargon-filled sentences cut into the effectiveness of the book's critical readings. Newton's book is a rich vein of critical ore that can be mined profitably by graduate students, researchers, and faculty. H. L. Carrigan, Jr.; Otterbein College