Ways of the World: Theater and Cosmopolitanism in the Restoration and Beyond by Laura J. Rosenthal (review)

Abstract

thing) and a perceiving mind, modeled on the various other kinds of involvements—between lord and dependent, suitor and potential spouse, or merchants and investments—that the eighteenth century calls ‘interest’” (105). Subsequently, when he turns to The Interesting Narrative in more detail, he demonstrates that Equiano effectively deploys all the available meanings of “interest” and “interesting”—political, affective, and economic—in order to solicit readers’ attention and sympathy and to convince them that these meanings are inherently complementary, perhaps even fungible. As the book artfully concludes, “The Interesting Narrative succeeds because it seeks out every kind of interest it can get” (123). Likewise, Interest and Connection in the Eighteenth Century succeeds along similar lines, with a brief conclusion that brings Sider Jost’s own interesting narrative up to date by considering the status of “interest” in such contemporary phenomena as Meg Wolitzer’s novel The Interestings (2013) and the Goodreads rating system.