241 CHRONICLESnloudest voices are those of Marxistsnand feminists bored by all the pointlessn”free play” of deconstructive interpretationnand zealous for Good Causes.nWithout actually endorsing the Marxistnor feminist critiques, the editorsnobserve in their introduction that deconstructionnmay well be so “vacuous”nand “global” that it lacks both “usefulness”nand verifiability and is thereforen”without any real force.”nIn his essay, the best in the collection,nJ. Hillis Miller anticipates manynof the objections—traditionalist andnradical—to deconstruction and offersna defense. He demolishes the traditionalnapproach to literary study, tracingnit back to Matthew Arnold’s attemptnto substitute the beauty of poetrynfor the abandoned doctrines of Christianity.nIn this view, deconstructionnsprings from a repudiation of this naivenaestheticism and constitutes an attemptnto find some new grounding—nsocial, linguistic, psychological, ornmetaphysical—for literary study. InnDeconstruction and Theology (1982),nCarl Raschke argues, “Deconstructionnis the death of God put into writing.n. . . Deconstruction is the dance ofndeath upon the tomb of God.” Certainly,nit is that, but it may be more asnwell. Deconstruction may also serve,nas Thomas Altizer observed, as ann”iconoclastic witness,” one that maynprovoke a new Christian affirmation.nas did Philo and Spinoza. Miller himselfnsuggests that deconstruction maynserve as a species of “negative theology.”nBecause Matthew Arnold recognizednno divine source for language ornverse, his adoration of poetry must benregarded as idolatrous. But Arnoldnborrowed much of the moral and ethicalnsubstance of his idol from Christiannpoets who, with Milton, heardn”the Heav’nly Muse.” Arnold’s idolnmay fall to deconstructionists only tonbe replaced by the more barbarousnicons of feminists and revolutionaries.nJacques Ellul offers a more promisingnway out of the dilemma in ThenHumiliation of the Word, a work devotednto “iconoclasm and . . . thencriticism of structuralist ideologies.”nIndicting Saussure, Derrida, and othernof his theory-mad countrymen, Ellulncriticizes both the structuralists whonare “reducing the word to … a scientificnobject” and the critics engaged inn”playful destructuring of language.”nHe provocatively links these anti-nLogos thinkers to a much broader andnessentially bourgeois cultural displacementnof “spoken language and thenword” with “images, films, and television.”nEllul laments the modern ascendancenof images, which conveynonly reality, over language, the conduitnof meaning and truth. (Barthesnexpresses a more equivocal attitudenBOOKS IN BRIEF-LANGUAGESnHomeric Greek: A Book for Beginners by Clyde Pharr and revised by Jolin Wiiglit; Norman,nOK: University of Oklahoma Press; $11.95. Innumerable students have been exposed tonPharr over the years, and while it is a terrible idea to teach Homer to beginning Greeknstudents (imagine learning English by way of Chaucer), Pharr’s text—updated andnrevised—is a splendid introduction to Homeric Greek for second or third year students.nHobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases by Henry Yulenand A.C. Burnell, with a Foreword by Anthony Burgess, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul;n$39.95. First published in 1886, Hobson-Jobson remains the standard reference work on whatnhappened to English in the Raj. More of an encyclopedia, really, than a mere glossary, l^-Jnoffers a lifetime of entertaining tidbits for lovers of Kipling and E.M. Forster.nWord Mysteries and Histories: From Quiche to Humble Pie by the editors of the AmericannHeritage Dictionaries, Boston: Houghton Mifflin; $16.95. A fascinating collection ofnsemantic trivia which delightfully refutes Samuel Johnson’s self-deprecating definition of andictionary-maker as “a harmless drudge.”nSocial Communication in Advertising: Persons, Products, and Images of Weil-Being bynWilliam Leiss, Stephen Kline, and Sut Jhally, New York: Methuen; $13.95. A carefulnsociological and semiotic analysis of 70 years of advertising in America and Western Europe.nMore cautious and scholarly than the work of Wilson Key or Vance Packard, the authors tracenthe evolution of advertising away from the marshaling of logical arguments about thenproduct’s virtues to the creation of an alluring social mystique surrounding the product. Youndon’t sell Calvin Klein jeans by comparing fabric strength.nnntoward the modern use of images innhis essay “Leaving the Movie Theater,”nwhere he admits that during hisnfrequent visits to the movie theater partnof his mind “gazes, lost in the engulfingnmirror,” while the other part of hisnconsciousness maintains an “ideologicalnvigilance” over the movie’s culturalnsetting.)nExtending the theses of his widelynacclaimed Technological Society (1950)nand Propaganda (1962), Ellul notesnhow the manipulation of images extendsnthe power of technocratic politiciansnand undermines the independencenof the individual. Like Plato, henregards even writing with some suspicion,naffirming the primacy of thenspoken word, alive with the voice andnpersonality of the speaker. He holds inncontempt the debased use of languagenin newspapers and pedantic scholarship.nIn a world of glossy pictures andnmoribund writing, “poetic communicationnhas been degraded, so we needna rediscovery . . . which would givenpoetry back its authenticity.” As andevout Calvinist, Ellul expresses hisndeepest distress at the religious implicationsnof the triumph of imagery overnlanguage. Reliance upon the visual,nhe argues, invariably entangles us innidolatry. “The only possible relationshipnwith Cod is based on the word,nand nothing else.” Though careful tonground his analysis in Scripture, Ellulnranges freely through the works ofnKirkegaard, Marx, Huxley, Malraux,nand lonesco. Impatient with the naivenbibliolatry found among Fundamentalists,nhe seeks a renewed reverencenfor the mystery of language, “multicenterednand flowing, evocative andnmythological.”nEven many Christian readers willndemur when Ellul criticizes thosenchurches with showy liturgy andndowngrades the importance of propheticnvisions recorded in Scripture.nYet this profound book should convincenmost readers that if language isnto be more than a scientific specimennor a critical plaything, we must locatenanew its divine origins and purposes.nThis will require attention to angelsnmore sublime than any imprisoned innCartesian machinery. Scripture tells ofnsuch beings, who praise God in songnand speak to man in words.n