The Afterlife of Enclosure: British Realism, Character, and the Commons by Carolyn Lesjak (review)

Abstract

warrants more attention than it receives here. That mystery derives in large part from the arcane networks in which each character forms a central node, a mystery which is compounded by professional decorums of gentlemanly reserve – a decorum in keeping with the role of “confidential clerk.” That mystery in turn amplifies the anxieties associated with the circulation of money and credit, as worries about far-reaching, seemingly impersonal financial markets come to be incarnated in the volatility of deeply personal relationships. Such mystery may or may not be charged with transgressive sexuality, as it clearly is (very differently) in Heep and Carker, but not at all clearly in Lorry and Harmon. The search for the erotically “queer,” unfortunately, tends to cloud both these distinctions and the larger structural importance of the characters, both within the financial networks they represent and within the novels where they appear. Dobbins does helpfully alert us to the affective complexity of finance in Dickens’s novels, and thereby enriches a topic that has long been recognized as a central concern of his fiction. But her study also brings home how very elusive the queer can be.