Behling (Gustavus Adolphus College) examines modernist American fiction's fascination with the anatomized, dissected, mutilated body. She argues convincingly that American writers have long focused on the body in an attempt to understand the humanity lodged within its corporeal boundaries. Though coming to fruition in the.modernist period with the rise of industrialization and machine culture, such a project can be recognized much earlier in the writings of Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe. This historical treatment begins with Irving and Poe and concludes with William Carlos Williams, Flannery O'Connor, and Ernest Hemingway. The epilogue discusses Katherine Dunn's Geek Love (1989), thus pointing to the postmodern era. Behling's methodology is to read the fiction against medical and medical technology texts of the corresponding time period. The reader comes to realize that a damaged body, be that damage the result of war or industrial accident, has a profound impact on the way the self is known (or unknown). A fine example of interdisciplinary work in the humanities, this volume makes a considerable contribution to the fields of literature and medicine. Includes illustrations. Summing Up: Recommended. ** Upperdivision undergraduates through faculty. —E. T. Klaver, Southern Illinois
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