The Novel and The Police

by D.A. Miller

Through a series of readings in the work of the decisive triumvirate of Victorian fiction, Dickens, Trollope and Wilkie Collins, Miller investigates the novel as an oblique form of social control.

Genres: Theory, Criticism, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Victorian

240 pages, Paperback

First published July 14, 1989

Reviews

[Lena , süße Maus · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is literary theory at its best: it is literary theory that *fucks*! dudes rock!!

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Foucauldian approach (among the first, along with Armstrong at about the same time). Miller argues that the 19c novel is obsessed with policing even as it/or especially because it marginalizes and displaces the actual police to depict a system of social norms that function to police middle class society independently of an actively punishing institution. The liberal subject learns to discipline herself--resulting in the same outcome that could have been achieved by other means. Moonstone = the police detectives ultimately fail, the novel solves the mystery according to the values it has set out all along. Bleak House = Chancery everywhere, not about interpretation but the flouting of interpretation/ we never know the actual question behind the case. Woman in White = the male reader is effeminized through the (feminine) nervousness of the sensation novel. Reading the novel teaches us to expect privacy, autonomy for a secret self that can read others (characters) without their reading us, but this secret is only constituted by being an open secret--in order for there to be a valuable secret self, the self has to let others know that there's an interiority that they are denied access to. And, of course, the reader surveys characters as they oversee, read, and determine other characters.

[Again, Miller repeatedly implies, as many others have done, that we can fully know characters...but character depth is created through the illusion of a fictional archive--in other words, that there is always more to know, specify and even though characters are technically delimited by their representation, the idea that they could potentially be further specifies always works to undermine their total definition. Therefore characters are allowed 'secrets' much like our own]

[zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

he's so smart.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

d a miller is so good he makes me fucking hornyyyyyyyy

[Jared · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating take on the presence (and occasionally the meaningful absence) of the police in Victorian novels, this book argues that our thinking, actions, and even identity are all controlled by external forces that either police us with the forces of the law and the state or get us to police ourselves with the forces of norms, respectability, and self-control. Miller takes for granted that his reader has at least a passing familiarity with the novels he analyzes, which means the chapters on novels I have read (Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, The Woman in White) were significantly easier to follow than the chapters on novels I haven't read (The Moonstone, Bleak House, Barchester Towers). Miller's explicit engagement with other scholars is almost entirely relegated to footnotes, which makes the body of his text seem ostensibly less academic, when in actuality it is highly academic but with references that are often apparent only to those who are already in the know. The best parts of the book are when Miller expands from thinking about the policing happening within the novels the policing happening between the novel and the reader. Novels train readers to look for and look up to the police, but novels also train readers to police themselves. Our own reading habits become as much a police force as the officers of the state.

[Danny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this in a novel theory class, and bought it and used it for an independent project. There's so much that I like about this book. It's critical without descending into complete lit crit dense prose that is inaccessible to anyone outside of Academia (and probably mostly everyone there too). Instead this book was just dense enough that even in the three hours I hate to wait at the DMV I still had more to read. The way how he discusses the impact on the literary treatment of crime, bureaucracy, and the police and the subsequent policing functions for both characters and readers alike was really transformative for me as a thinker. He also richly dissects the texts without losing sight of major issues which is exciting as a reader of these texts as well... where could I go with some of these ideas? I usually appreciate but do not enjoy criticism, but I enjoyed reading this. The chapters on Dickens were both the most relevant to my project and I also thought they were the best.

[Ladypunctilio · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually didn't read the whole book, but this is all I'll read this semester: the foreword, first chapter, and chapter 5 (on The Woman in White and Lady Audley's Secret). I found chapter 1 incredibly dense, but I'm sure it would've been easier if I'd read Dickens' Oliver Twist. Chapter 5 was much easier to follow because I've read W.i.W. He's mainly using feminist/queer theory and deconstruction, at least in the chapters I read.