I mks in Yeview POSSIBLE STORMS - University of British Columbia

OPINIONS & NOTESplained at some length earlier. But I didnot mean "empathize with"! Goddamlanguage. I meant what the Catholicsused to call "human respect," meaning, bybizarre inversion, the fear of social disapprobation.I am somewhat offended by the "age ofpermissiveness" argument, ... as I was bythe original "1980s fashion." Likewise"the simple-minded notion that art is 'selfexpression.'" Is that what you think I didin Unknown Soldier? Is that what youthink I'm arguing for? . . .KEITH то PAYERLE, 3 December 1989. . . After the exchange of several letters,in which the genuine George Payerlecame across in a way that he couldn'tpossibly in the novel (I'll spare you anacademic lecture on the difference betweenthe implied author and the nameon the title page), I reread the novel andcame to the conclusion that, whateveryour intentions and whatever the wholehistory of writing the book, and whateverblood and guts went into it (and I do recognizethat), my opinion as a reader, andso as a reviewer, hadn't changed. I canonly express an opinion on what is there— or rather what I can recognize as there.You ask for "an appreciation of UnknownSoldier based on the terms in which it iswritten" — but I honestly don't see howI can do that.AMONG RECENT publications on photography,Robert M. Levine, Images of History: Nineteenthand Early Twentieth Century LatinAmerican Photographs as Documents (Duke,US$72.50) presents remarkable deconstructionsof colonial tropes. Levine analyzes formalportraits of masters and slaves, family pictures,snapshots of visiting anthropologists with their"objects," and so on. He probes manifestationsof overt and covert culture, comments on perspectivalchoices in landscapes and cityscapesand analyzes the conventions of "posed decorum."After Images of History, Stefan Richter,The Art of the Daguerreotype (Viking,$29.95), i s difficult to tolerate. The reproductionsare very good, but too many of them arepornographic and too many are merely describedas "charming," "playful," or "amusing."The author seems to be little disturbed bythe information that the models for thesepictures were "washerwomen, needlewomen,housemaids, messenger-girls and prostitutes."After stating that their "names are not known,"he comes to the startling conclusion that in"the daguerreotype, as in the brothel, class barrierswere transcended." By contrast to Levineand Richter, Mike Weaver, ed., Photographyin the Nineteenth Century: The Fine Art Tradition(Cambridge, £25.00), pursues neithersocial nor prevalent concerns. The book presentsa series of scholarly essays on pictorialismand other Victorian photographic styles andthemes. The book is good on the naturalisttradition (there are three essays on the workof P. H. Emerson), but there are also noteworthycontributions on topographical and architecturalphotography. Of related interest toLevine's book is John F. Bauman and ThomasH. Coode, In the Eye of the Great Depression:New Deal Reporters and the Agony of theAmerican People (Northern Illinois, $25.00/9-5°)·THE FOLLOWING NCL EDITIONS have been received:Hetty Dorval by Ethel Wilson, afterwordby Northrop Frye; The Innocent Travellerby Ethel Wilson, afterword by P. K. Page;The Equations of Love by Ethel Wilson, afterwordby Alice Munro; Swamp Angel by EthelWilson, afterword by George Bowering; MadShadows by Marie-Claire Biais, afterword byDaphne Marlatt.225