Review by Choice Review
The first part of Dollimore's study, "Desire and Theory," challenges contemporary critics who seek to reduce sexual dissidence to theory. Doing so, the author (Univ. of York, UK) argues, erases the complexity and diversity of desire. He labels such reductions "wishful theory," by which one ignores reality and refashions the world according to a preconceived agenda. In the other two sections, the author turns to literature and specifically to the portrayal of desire in literature. If he criticizes many contemporary theorists in the first section, Dollimore is much more negative about the traditionalists, those who regard the humanities, particularly literature, as the great and sacrosanct bastions of culture. They, too, he suggests, are wishful. They read literature mindlessly, unaware that the desire portrayed might be other than that acknowledged by heterosexual "normalcy." They become, in effect, censors. The study touches on relatively few literary works, and on those only very briefly. Thus, the value of the book resides chiefly in its overall argument, an extension of that in Dollimore's earlier works, particularly Sexual Dissidence (CH, May'92). Well researched, with extensive notes and bibliography, this book will be useful in academic libraries supporting work at the upper-division undergraduate level and above. J. L. Culross Eastern Kentucky University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
