PATRICIA COUGHLAN,
Madam, - Eileen Battersby is an able reviewer of new literary fiction. Unfortunately, she has markedly failed to do justice to her own intelligence in her review of Field Day Anthology Vols. IV and V, which concerns Women's Writing and Traditions (October 5th).
A full page in length, this piece noticeably lacked the crispness which has distinguished the best of her reviewing; but above all, it showed a marked, even a disqualifying, absence of sympathy for the work being discussed.
I will focus on a few issues. Her praise of Séamus Deane's editorship of Vols I-III is perfectly appropriate, but the phrase "powerfully shaped by one presiding genius", and several others like it, reveal a determination to resist the quite different approach deliberately adopted in the new volumes, namely a co-operative project by eight main editors.
It is clear that Ms Battersby does not understand, or at least will not entertain, the notion of a collaborative editorial process; this idea is nevertheless at the core of these volumes, which consciously move away from the heroic-individual, or macho, model of intellectual practice which she thinks was at work in the 1991 volumes.
She also reveals a sweeping hostility to feminism in any shape or form. Counter to the vast majority of working literary scholars, of whatever gender, known to me, and in the face of evidence from many periods and cultures, she maintains that "gender does not decide exclusions" from the canon of great works. But it has manifestly decided the exclusions from Field Day I-III which themselves have motivated Vols. IV-V. With staggering unfairness, Battersby says the effect of these volumes is to marginalise women.
No: that was unfortunately done, to the regret of all good critics and well-balanced readers, in 1991. As an act of exclusion it is eloquent, and it cannot now be fully undone; but most readers would feel the present volumes (created, it is fair to say, with the ready approval of Deane himself) respond appropriately and noticeably advance the dialogue about writing, gender and Irish culture.
There are moments where Ms Battersby's own response to the material wins out, as when she notes the painful power of Joanne Hayes's words, even though they are "not good writing". But the review repeatedly shows its own unease and sometimes its confusion. For instance, the editorial emphasis on sexuality is said to "prove relentless" even though this is an "admittedly important theme"; and the drama section is "noticeably weak", though this is "a field where women have always been overshadowed".
Ultimately, Ms Battersby wants to preserve the sphere of literature against what she clearly feels to be a threatening incursion by "the sociological agenda" (though she will admit categories such as science writing and children's literature, which do not challenge the wish for aesthetic demands to drive out ideological awareness). Thus she appreciates most the material from early periods.
This certainly is excellent, but Ms Battersby's praise of it - taking it as safely distant from present-day struggles, injustices and animosities - further underlines her fixed resistance to engaging with contemporary perspectives which might challenge her own assumptions in the spheres of art, of thought, and perhaps even of feeling itself. - Yours, etc.,
PATRICIA COUGHLAN,
Associate Professor,
Department of English,
University College,
Cork.