BOOKS
rcfl ex of a commCfcial soc icty in th c rcccsscs of public life. With ex–
traordinary insight into the nature o f modern cx peri cnce, he recog–
nizes that it is no t sufficientl y descripti ve o f modern man to say that he
is subj ect
to
a m arket economy and constantl y engaged in a co ntest for
eco nomi c adva ntage . The comp etiti ve establishme nt o f market value
extends to th ose parts of a pe rso n , th ose aspec ts o f behav io r, once
th ought
to
have
incalm lnhle
va lu e.
295
Ian Bell is conce rn ed with exposing what he beli eves to be the inade–
quacy of oppositions su ch as the ca lculable and th e in calculable, the public
and the private, given th e impe ri ali zing fo rce o f th e marke tpl ace . Thus in
his desc ripti o n o f
Th e Boslolliall5
he speaks o f " publicity [as] the age ncy
whereby the world adverti ses and pe rpe tu ates itse lf, " a " synecdoche for
the changing culture in w hi ch all hi s charac te rs arc caught up. " All that
James ca n manage in th e w ay o f c ritiqu e is an express io n of di staste,
"which £lils to inco rpo rate th e di agnosti c complexity w e find in th e fi c–
tion. "
Ian Bell 's account o f th e self in relati o n to soc iety turns out to be
quite different from Milli ce nt Bell's. The self has lost its capacity for resis–
tance: indeed , it seems to have lost its quiddity, becoming instead a func–
tion of the dynami sm , the flu idity , th e transfo rmati o ns of the marketplace.
The private and the pe rsonal in a sense cease
to
exist, since the self has
been taken ove r b y publi city . An example is the spec tacl e o f Verena as
public perfo rmer in
The Boslollialls.
C harac ter becomes rol e; b ehavi o r be–
comes performance. Ian Bell resolves th e mo ral tensio n th at Millicent Bell
finds in James's fi cti o n , in th e de te rminisms o f th e marketpl ace . Ian Bell,
followin g Jea n l3audrillard , spea ks o f a shift th at o cc urs within the culture
of consumpti o n , to w hi ch J ames has been assigned the rol e of inadvertent
witness, from th e civic to the adve rti sa ble, from th e public to publi city ,
the effect of which is
to
dissolve th e pe rson into personality.
Ian Bell's approach fl atte ns th e w o rld o f J am es ian fi ction to o ne of
"display, surface and pe rfo rmance." H e spea ks o f J ames's ambivalent rela–
tion to it, but it wo uld seem to be an ambivalence without fo rce , sin ce he
finds so little in th e narrati ve consc io usness o f the fi cti o n to resist the
culture of consumpti o n. Mi ss ing from Ian Bell 's di sc ussion is the ri ch in–
teriority, the sense o f potenti ality th at fi gures so impressively in Milli cent
Bell's expositi on of th e fi cti o n . This is not to d eny that he has ca ught hold
of something in hi s interpret3ti o ns o f
Washill,RlolI Sqllare, Th e B0510llians
and
The
Ell ropealls,
but the claim he makes hardly does justi ce to
Portrait oj
a
Lady
or th e late novels, w hi ch
he
m e rcifull y does no t study at any
length.
It used to be an argument in £owor o f a criti cal pe rfo rmance that it was
