13 Kate’s Choice, or, The Materialism of Henry James Save} Zidek 1 may sud Ilo fhm ef anyon se en hia wi {Biever dimencn, pe a RES apn {te mas aa of anes ae scuba See ae ae teate tony he onc ot hey bce which interact i Th he Wing of he De Se Ant The Wn of te Dore cence cn ean ok a an becoie a “ln Conse sisal tit a spate humsn agent oy a a compel - witness hisheay we ofthe aplagen lave Linked othe itera ot poy cee ‘race she doesnt have ee oy hae cae bat Reed sain, the quality itself becomes a thing, oe vw it ra poh don ees ion een 4 pronoun is given firs, ing he Fe ae eh et Sean Te on KATES eMOICH, Om, THI MATERIALISM OF HENRY Jauth's 289 "4 Cry, for her father come in.’ minimal gap chs introduced ‘een the pameles she’ and her determinate qualieaion, indicating the lan and vacating character of every qualieation. Deis not ely sn tat fora previous introduced determinate person or thing ates, ‘hal foram unmameable X (9 Kind of Kantian noumenal Thing ~and et ws sotonge that thing is another favourite Jes tern) which eudes alts ulations. fa strict parallel to nomination of verbs, ere, ga, the ject i educed tan anonymous ‘anchor of abstractions The subject ‘thing to which atibates ae attached, or which undergoes changes it "kind of empty container, space in which things can be cated to anyone versed in the Marxist critique of the speculative-Hegelian ‘elgial inversions in which an absteat predicate turns ito the Subject of "proces, while real individuals’ are ees to its subordinted prcicts, wis dieu here to eit the temptation to (dis)qualiy these stylistic pro- "slures as indications of James’ fal into ‘bourgeois ieologcal reification ‘ely since his sift of acent fons nouns to their properties does not ‘uly om the standard ‘ales notion ofthe print of the proces over "ings caught into this process, of becoming’ over ‘being anything, ames ‘sa true ansped hereto Proust's ‘Rergsonisn instead of presenting the fax ‘1 Becoing as the wth of fied Beings, asthe process which generates thems, ‘tras verbs and predates themselves ~ signs ofthe proces of bevoming, ‘that happens to things oF what specie/qualifes them = ino things Ata “leper, properly Hegelian, dialectical level, however, things are much more ‘omplot it James’ very aomialzing of predicates and vers heir change into substantive agent, which ffecively le-substantiaies the subet, ‘elcing to 3 formal empty space ia which the multitude of agents interact “Somewhat ike today’s neo Darwinist theories of subjectivity athe space in ‘shich memes ight their bates for survival and reproduction. Insofar asthe paradigmatic cate of the above-mentioned Marist critique ‘of the refeaton of a ideologial abstraction i money, we should none ‘he ese not be surprised that theultimate topic of Henry Tams work i the ‘fect of capital modernization on ethical fe: indeterminacy and con- ‘ingency undermine the old elance on table forms prescribing how we ate teract and to evleate our own and oer’ acts thee is no longer # Fed frame which enables us to nd our (ethical) way. The greatness of James however, is that while he flly accepts ths rupture of modernity, and emphasizes the falsty of any rete to old ores, he also avoids etic Feltvsm and historcsm ~ that isthe relatvzation of norms and ethical ‘ales 16 expression of some more fundamental underlying (economic, Psychological, poizl)histrial proces. Far from throwing us back intooe ‘moral glatvism, oe F moral tii, opens up anew higher ld Bes hema dependence armada ok sn others bt oo renga Uuhis 3 9st of orm thura cate eee the etic woof "mediation at, Ss ana we of medion’ of me mcopng the ne eat ae ‘s to say: in the Hegelian ror =i ‘Riise (a the socal efor eae eae sap its jut tha st that keeps tae ‘Se gh ton a “dir mh shore with the simple ‘Hegelian’ movement into alienation (gti nd recuperation of once (indinga fm position: the pots mon ‘seane i the very movement of getting ot (of sing ei subst Vu opens ap the space forthe eal work of mediation hich alone we rate the solution. Thus the loss i wot recuperated but fully asserted ating, as postive opening this means that the space of James's novels is thoroughly secular py loss. The grat act of enunciation atthe end of The Pore of al vl Archer decides to stay with er repulsive husband although she ss ‘eave him) isthe elimate poo of James's materialism: it has noth Fatsoever to do with ay king of rlgious transcendence; what makes ths sieltion so enigmatic i that i on the contrary, conditioned by th Tack of any transcendence ican ocur on asa Kd of ery gsi des uve. nis this passage wo the (feminine) act tht fl in Th ess Casannasia, Henry Jane's neglected masterpiece" Casamassi iuttions are obvious: approaching the topic of revolutionary anaes the London slums of the 180s, ames engage in a kind of tele "jn an exerise inthe seer power the gasping power, of inligae to vine that which i dino ell know? Therein es he dfferece fon hs sterpiees, ike The Porat af a Lay or The Wags ofthe Dove, wher he "realy at home inthe material i Casamassona, James is simply unable “inet confront the contours of revolutionary pies ~ he does aot know ‘nciane texte of his explosive topic. Thisis wh to masks ignorance. he ‘gages in elaborate sets of impressions of the London slums, write with ‘east for the speechless suffering poor. This fur emerges at its Ihrest apropos ofthe novel's character: Jamies can provide ian deserp ons of individual revolutionary types (Poupiny Schinkel, Muniment, but ‘sha is totally missing is «pcte of he enlestiverevoltionary movement such He made the mistake of supposing thatthe whole was sl 9 sm “its parts hat if yom exh the radial you had gotten at radials." However, there stlls fundamental often ovelooked and misunderstood, teson to be lmed from The Princess Casas: o express the deadlock in its radical is mach more pertinent than simple progressive solutions The dasa on this book that stan forthe conservative James a its re ite message aesthetic canservatim — great monuments of elute, and the ‘lized’ way of Iie ofthe upper cases, justify the suffering of milins. Tey, this problem confonts ts if anything in a mach more aggravated vay: lberaldemocrtic Buen societies with thei cltue verso blions living in poverty in the Third World the recourse to terrorist valence. In the way it approaches its topic, however, the book is much moee eda22 ‘rie Sikes PaRTiseas tnd ambiguous tan it may appear; the Rist cue is provided bythe rates ‘perfil ft that all lower lass revolutionary character are portrayed busily sympathetic while the upper-class ones are clea presmted a i ain vulgar ames is thas fr from endorsing tesiged conservative ati fof Te us preserve what we can of the great cultural hertage, even it ‘eas paid for bythe suffering ofthe anonymous milion al inv Stand for this heritage are fake, following an empey ritual; thelr nose i mask of velgrity Thos the deadlock i el tere is no cay ey Hyacinth Robinsons suicide, with which thebok conddes she sgn of tunsobabl antinomy: the impossibility of choosing between the rights of th Alispossessd and high culture, More pertinent, what Hycith can ri together are the two sides of a paras view ~a feature that characteriza! James himsel with his power to sce both sides of question. Hyacinth as, to his destruction, can see each side of the question so well hat the only action staiable wo him i self desruction, which i tel a symbolic state tent the only work of art availabe to him.” The key difeence betwen "Hyacinth and fames was that ames was able a 'work through’ his inability wo act his withdrawal fom participation in life, to transpose it nto the at of ‘ering. Thi why, paraoviall, Hyacinth foe to ps othe act and rurder an uppercass figure) is also a sign of his lick of creativity “Hyacinth refusal to destroy i also a inabity to crete, ad reflects deeper internal conflicts inthe story” We should thus turn around the wellknown Platte scoring to which destructive rage i sign of creative impotence {very authentic creative breakthrough starts with the negive gesture of Alsiaction, of clearing the late” Far from concerning only the intricacies of intimate Ubidial investments the parallax gap is therefore ofthe utmost politcal importance ~ suc it recall the narave srucure of the novels of Henning Mankall, arguably tly’ foremost detective writer, an autor with no afity whatsoever for James's universe. Most of Manells detective novels ~ set ia the southern Ssh twa of Ystad with Inspector Kurt Wallan as their hero ~ flow these formula: they start with a bre prologue set na Thed World poor unt then the novel proper moves to stad. The Other of today’s Word inion: the poor Thind World cours, thus ase into the universe of ‘Manal's Wallander novels this big Other of Word History has to remain in nc kgoouind, a the dstant Absent Cause, There fone novel (The Deg of Ij the second book in the Wallader series) in which Mankel violates his rales allows Wallander to intervene dire into the Other of History: the suse of iestigatng the murder of «couple of Russians whose corpse ‘sre fund onthe cont lose to Ystad, Wallner vss Lae, where he tet hash OF HENRY JAMES 299 ce and the collapse ofthe Soviet Union =r SE A ay injury ste rcs a aso we gta enue be sen in Mankells atic [rae a toner hoe me seein aoe pe hme het Me roc Wd and Me ie PN aM itten a couple of non-detective no i ea brings uN een fe ganic rt canton tyre a a 1p ew That 7 tc ha ee in tat of Maps te tes cen Fst i a A wee ESE een at very else Foc on epithe “og tee Tard ER tne er band To dismiss First World problems 38 tr) eke thet a a ceo ones wate i al "1 lems’ is the ultimate form of “nmi Fa pa sen ean ith haan No a te DB He MOOS eT en sc fecal tk ec he one Sew Land sack of he Sale ofan commen anges BW rope didn he am ters of pve! a err pat it bri culture and commodification. There ae 2 boars ein aa er ac wih he nevi cody ro go fx Manel at tn favorite language’, Doct TN Mhee iso commnon denominator Dewees ar ea et area ee new stand for de orks Maputo, and simaltaneousy aware thal) cin enero og parle character the ion he othe wry of inne 7 ae ok reir ant te {oday’s word consteltion