Figures Of Dissent [Hardcover]

Terry Eagleton is perhaps the best-known academic literary critic writing in English today. Author of nearly 30 books on topics ranging from critical theory to Wittgenstein, Eagleton remains the political conscience of modern criticism and (with Fredric Jameson) the foremost Marxist theorist of our time. His deep literary and philosophical erudition and commitment to a more humane approach to looking critically at our culture have made him an important voice in academia since the mid-1960s.

In "Figures of Dissent," Eagleton turns his penetrating gaze to topics ranging from Lukacs to David Beckham, and his wit, learning, and elegant prose make this his most accessible and diverse collection of essays yet. Unlike such earlier essay collections as "Against the Grain," this book contains many of Eagleton's mainstream writings. While it includes reviews of critical theorists like Gayatri Spivak, Paul de Man, and Stuart Hall, there are also examinations of popular history, fiction, and the culture of late capitalism. Those with little interest in the abstract world of literary theory (Eagleton's academic specialty and principal interest) will find essays on other topics to entice them.

Overall, this is a fine collection from Eagleton, who remains an indispensable and passionate voice for Leftist thought in our tumultuous times.

Terry Eagleton is best known as an, albeit unorthodox, Marxist writer on literary theory, so one could well expect a collection of some of his best literary reviews to be chock-full of impenetrable jargon. But looks can be deceiving: this collection, titled "Figures of Dissent", is in fact quite entertaining, even for those who have no particular training or interest in high-minded lit-crit. The title is somewhat odd, as the subjects under review have nothing in particular in common (except their works being published in English at some point), least of all some sort of status as 'dissenter'. The authors involved are on the other hand all interesting and varied, and this makes the book in fact rather a page-turner.

Most appealing about the reviews is Eagleton's unsurpassed mastery of both style and content. He pairs erudite literary insight with a sharp wit and a strongly developed sense of irony, which makes his reviews both informative as statements on literature and highly effective as polemics. Moreover, in contrast to many collections of such essays by famous theorists, the vast majority of the reviews involved can be considered to be overall 'positive', and Eagleton deftly avoids the grumpy predictability of the entrenched newspaper critic.

Admittedly, one could complain that the collection is rather unduly focused on British literature, and there are many references to literature theorists as well as writers who are not likely to ring a bell with anyone outside the Isles, but this is easily forgiven as Eagleton is the best guide to the subject one might wish for. It does help to have a particular interest in Anglo-Irish literature, as this is Eagleton's specialty and a recurring theme in the book, and perhaps choosing this as the subject of the first two or three reviews in the book was not well-chosen. But the reader discovers soon enough that Eagleton has something intelligent to say about pretty much any subject from Dario Fo to Bill Gates, and his short-and-to-the-point criticisms of ideology hit home like so many arrows of Artemis (one will find the book very quotable). The high point of this collection as well as his artful irony is when Eagleton reviews David Beckham's autobiography, which is mercilessly dissected in a very comical dry style without ever becoming condescending to its subject.

Much recommended to anyone who enjoys English language literature.

I spent some time this summer reading Eagleton, beginning with After Theory. This was a long time after his Literary Theory: An Introduction, which was a must-read back when I was in college. Yet, other than this one must-read, I really didn't read any of his books, which, I was surprised to find out, now total over 30 titles. Solely on the basis of Literary Theory, Eagleton didn't seem a particularly witty writer to me, so I was delighted and intrigued by his way of making light of heavy topics with humor. With this discovery on hand, if you go back to his early books, heavy-handed seriousness toward a subject was indeed rarely his way from the beginning. There are many passages in Literary Theory (or Against the Grain, and other early titles) where his deeply ironical stance toward the topics obviously of great importance to him, or at times surprisingly savage wit, makes you laugh.

Quite a few reviews in this book have hilarious one-liners or otherwise laughter-provoking comments. One of my favorite is one written for Harold Bloom and his How to Read and Why. Bloom is a "figure of dissent" in his way, who, according to Eagleton, was "once an interesting critic" when he came up with a theory of literature as an oedipal drama, and then much later, after his "critical wheel has come full circle," began distancing himself from the US academia by "preaching the unversal humanity in a New York accent." Eagleton's concluding comment, that "if there is Bloom the self-therapist, there is also Bloom the American TV evangelist, full of windy moralistic rhetoric about how to 'aprehend and recognize the possibility of the good, help it to endure, give it space in your life'," is so very correct.

Laughter aside, the book contains a lot to learn from. To me, this can be a field manual to book reviewers, and those who want to be good readers. In some reviews, for example the one done on Rolf Wiggershaus' The Frankfurt School, Eagleton seems to spend almost the whole of the space in discussing what *he* thinks and knows about the subject the reviewed book deals with, giving the book in question a space of just a paragraph or two toward the very end. In the end, such an approach is always a well-taken one, since it gives the book a more precise location in not only the cultural/intellectual climate where it appeared but also the personal context where it's read and appreciated.