TONY TANNER
293
amplification and interpolations, extending and retelling a life which
was so notably concerned with writing (Tallien invented the
journal–
affiche),
violence (he initiated the movement against Robespierre and
was very active during the Terror), and passion (he conceived a great
love for the aristocratic Therese). A one point Tuten imagines Tallien's
interpretation of a story by Washington Irving, then adds: "I do
wonder, however, whether Tallien's exegesis has any base in the text,
or whether, as with so many men of action, themes in the text of one's
own life are not unknowingly projected into the fabric of the art-work
experienced. We tend to seek in literature mirrors or explanations of
our Self, unless we skill ourselves to separate our own blood from
another's text." The shifting relationships between blood and texts is
just that area of inquiry in which a lot of contemporary American
fiction is working, with very exciting, if necessarily highly variable,
results. (I single out Tuten because he is new to me and his piece is
particularly attractive, but
Statements
contains other interesting work
by such writers as Jonathan Baumbach, Jerome Charyn, B.H. Fried–
man, Israel Horovitz, Maureen Howard, Ronald Sukenick and others
"rhich I have no space to comment on.)
Still with language there is a story in the collection by Russell
Banks called "That" -including, appropriately, a quotation from
Gertrude Stein-which simply and subtly traces some of the proble–
matical changes in the relationship between a boy and a girl. Particular
attention is given to that deterioration through repetition which
afflicts the terms employed in the endless discussions they have about
their relationship. "They lost language-the new explanations always
canceled the terms of the predecessors, sealing the old words off, letting
them lie in piles in the past, gradually converting there into pockets of
stale gas.... Some of the words and phrases used-up, exhausted of
meaning, canceled-out, or otherwise lost, were ... " -then follows a
long list ranging from
"trust"
to
"regeneration."
Again, in his story,
"Impasse,"
Banks gives an account of a married man who finds himself
in the morally impossible position of not loving his wife but feeling he
should not leave her. He explains this in careful analytic terms to a new
girl friend. "He told her mainly of his dilemma, little else. As it turned
out, Rosa seemed interested in little else, seemed almost eager to have
him continue speaking of his marriage in the abstract, problematic
terms he so adored." The displacement of "affect" into terminology is a
phenomenon, or an affliction, which Banks portrays very deftly. His
collection of stories,
Searching for Survivors,
is indeed a very satisfying
and impressive volume which holds its shape while offering various
