296
PARTISAN IliVIEW
responsive to the texture of the work , that it gave back in its own lan–
guage the idiom and spirit of the work being interpreted. A critic who
performs in this manner nowadays is exercising an unfashionable virtue.
Millicent's work is clearly the fruit of a long devotion; it is a superbly
mediated study, a critical act with the greatest respect for the novelist's
achievement. And it is enriched by a resourceful and sophisticated under–
standing of narrative theory. Ian Bell also admires James, but the terms of
his admiration are defined by historical categories (the culture of produc–
tion and the cu lture of consumption) that only partially fit the subject and
that translate the Jamesian story into someone else's narrative. James's
characters become allegorical figures in the triumphant emergence ofa
consumer culture in America. Even that story is taken for granted as rep–
resenting a history in which James can be neatly placed and explained. Ian
Bell cites a variety of scholarly sources on the culture of consumption, but
gives us no clear persuasive account of its character or of what might be
contending understandings of it. Ian Bell's study does not satisfy our cu–
riosity about the story or stories that James
{cl/s;
to satisfy our curiosity we
turn to Millicent Bell.
EUGENE GOODHEART
Non-predicting the Fall of Communism
EAST EUROPEAN ALTERNATIVES.
By
Elemer Hankiss.
Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
S72.00.
Understanding the political developments in Eastern Europe since the late
1980s remains a major intellectual cha ll enge. Not on ly did Western stu–
dents of Communism (including
mysel~
fail to anticipate these events;
even in retrospect they find it hard to explain them satisfactorily. To be
sure, many attempts have been made and will continue to be made.
Experts who took for granted the survival of the Soviet system are now
telling the public why it cou ld not have survived, why it was not viable,
why the collapse was only a matter of time. But when Gorbachev
emerged it was widely suggested and believed that whatever the problems
