Roy R. Male

We know that money "talks". But does it mean what it says? The essayists depict money as a submerged theme of American novels.

In the Foreword by Ronald Schleifer, notes that the novels studied reveal a world in which "only economic relations really matter" (Gross). For language not to be deceptive and obscuring, some sort of basis for trust must exist. If the 'circuit of speech' is only a vehicle for cynical self-interest, such trust is continually being destroyed. "Language does not connect, it deceives, it controls, it manipulates. In a sense it can be said that real speech ceases to exist". [xiii] Hence the haunting ambivalence of the authors toward money and fiction, the most important currencies we have.

Is "value", embodied in fiction or reserve notes, an illusory quibble? Interest on the absent principal of truth, reason, and propriety?

The editor of this collection of nine essays invites study of the "embarrassment of riches" in which economic metaphors recur in literature. The metaphors are strangely literal. Included:

Leslie Fiedler - "Literature and Lucre". Authors, crying all the way to the bank. The novel is the great American form--like the commerce that circulates the novel, invented at the time of inventing a Republic, parleying with and mastering Nature. Money is the "one universal currency".

Marc Shell - "The Gold Bug". America was the historical birthplace of widespread paper money in the Western world. And money is the central concern of America. Authors articulate the relation between symbolism of money and the value it represents and creates. Punning about money makes something out of nothing, so the paper is a pun. The dissociation from meaning creates the possibility of the usury that Aristotle decries. Melville feared that "all literature was, like money, in this sense, a merely passable 'naught', a mere cipher...where the tropic center of symbolization is an 'algebraic x' threatening language and money with devaluation and annihilation." [xii] {I keep laughing about the fact that the "Gold-Bug" is a humbug.}

Edgar Dryden - "The Image in the Mirror: The Double Economy of James' Portrait." [Of a Lady] James' metaphors have economic content. Readers try to get the experience as cheaply as possible.

Patrick Morrow - The Bought Generation: Another Look at Money in 'The Sun Also Rises'." Hemingway treats money on an open book account.

David Gross - "Tales of Obscene Power: Money, Culture, and the Historical Fictions of E.L. Doctorow". The author exercises his own Marxism. Money curses and swears. "Money is important in fiction because it is at the source of the most important fictions in our lives". [x]

Steven Weisenburger - "Contra Naturam?: Usury in Willaim Gaddis's JR." Depreciation is the general topicof JR. "Usury itself is the state of nature". Molecules exchange particles and give up energy (interest) during the transaction. The puns on "interest" of literal significance strangely overlaying the figurative phrase. Money verifies because it is the "great national myth" of America. Suggests a similarity/identity between money and language. As semiological systems. The distinction between substance and shadow in monetary and aesthetic theory affects understanding of both, and creates radical distrust of language.

Steven Ryan - "The Soul's Husband: Money in Humboldt's Gift". Saul Bellow depicts Humboldt saying "If I'm obsessed with money...The reason is that we're Americans after all. What kind of American would I be if I were innocent about money?...Because money IS freedom...". [x] Bellow suggested that the model for Humboldt was the poet Delmore Schwartz, or Issac Rosenfeld, or Lenny Bruce, or a generation of Jewish-American losers. The not-so-beautiful recipient of the "Gift" is Citrine, who finds, in the death of Humboldt, his survival, and an occasion for guilt. Our guilt, as the inevitable companion of success.[10] Leaving the heritage of a "story" which can be sold to the movies and clinch a Nobel Prize.

Mark Harris - "Things I Left Out of My Autobiography or How Thorstein Veblen's Theory of Conspicuous Consumption worked for Me." Really is autobiographical, punning on the "verifying bonus" of money.

Herbert Gold - "Creatively Writing the Grippingly Erotic True Story". Money talks and it "talks dirty".… (más)