Border Crossings: Thomas King's Cultural Inversions by Arnold E. Davidson , Priscilla L. Walton , Jennifer Andrews (review)

MLR, 100.4, 2005 1105 the ascendancy of the former (from 1935 onwards) goes the diminution of the latter: 'The interest in right naming rises in step with Pound's need for dogmatic authority; and the interest in ideogrammic writing fails likewise' (p. 120). The formeris linked to the fetishized awe that, paradoxically, Pound associated with money understood as a repository of value in itself and hence a principal source of social and political corrup? tion. Here, then, precision and a care fordiscrimination lead not to clarity of exchange and understanding but to monotheistic dogma. By contrast, Wendy Stallord Flory attends to the Pisan experience of Confucianism and the analogies Pound drew with Catholicism. Taking her new material from Pound's two-page commentary on Confucius , written forFather Vath, the Catholic chaplain at Pisa, and fromthe marginalia in his copy of the Catholic Prayer Book for the Army and Navy, Flory argues that Pisa produced a new version of Confucius which did not embrace authoritarianism but was more concerned with the enlightenment and development of the self amidst painful and inhospitable circumstances. The unspoken debate is complicated further by Ronald Bush, who also draws upon new material?the Chinese characters that Pound inscribed onto his typescript of the Pisan Cantos but which were omitted from the published text. They were taken mainly from the Analects with 'a fair smattering from Mencius and a surprising few from The Great Digest' (pp. 164-65). For Bush, this selection identifies an important shift in Pound's thinking, detectable at Pisa rather than the later period at St Elizabeth's: an acknowledgement of 'heterogeneity and modesty', a pluralism of perspective, 'variegated moods and voices' (p. 168) which provided a powerful source of comfort. These three essays resurrect in fresh form the familiar schisms?authoritarianism and enlightenment, singularity and diversity, dogmatism and dialogue. We do not need to slip into the illusory consolation of contradictory affiliations: we need still to ask about the how of those affiliations. University of Keele Ian F. A. Bell Border Crossings: Thomas King's Cultural Inversions. By Arnold E. Davidson, Priscilla L. Walton, and Jennifer Andrews. Toronto, Buffalo, NY, and London: University of Toronto Press. 2003. ix + 223pp. $35; ?22.50. ISBNo8020 -4134-5. 'Tragedy is mytopic. Comedy is my strategy.' Thus Thomas King sums up his central themes and narrative methods. Since the early 1990s, King's prolific output in litera? ture, criticism, radio, and filmhas made him widely known to Native and non-Native audiences, in Canada and the United States, in academia, and among general readers. While his work has received considerable scholarly attention in literaryjournals and anthologies, Border Crossings is the firstbook-length study devoted to it. Like all non-Native scholars who engage with Native writing, Davidson, Walton, and Andrews findthemselves in an awkward political position. They claim in their in? troduction that, as non-Native scholars, they are 'speaking about', not 'speaking for', this most popular and versatile Native author. The categorical distinction between 'speaking about' and 'speaking for' can only be sustained, however, by pretending that texts speak for themselves. To claim that one speaks about rather than for an author, one must overlook the fact that reading is itself an act of agency, and discount the idea that the meanings one 'finds' in a text depend on the knowledge, cultural background, social attitudes, and linguistic competences that one brings to that text. Davidson, Walton, and Andrews elicit meaning from King's written and visual texts not only by paying close attention to what King has produced, but also by contextu? alizing his work theoretically and discursively. Without such acts of readerly agency, no6 Reviews literary critics have no basis for claiming they are making an original contribution to knowledge and understanding of an author's work. Davidson, Walton, and Andrews are thus caught in a double bind: they are obliged to claim, on the one hand, that they offeroriginal readings of King's work, while on the other hand maintaining that King's writing speaks for itself. What kinds of reading strategies do Davidson, Walton, and Andrews adopt, and what new insights into King's work do they provide? On these questions...

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