about Poe before, in his American Hieroglyphicsrn(1980), as well as about Faulknerrnin Doubling and Incest/Repetition andrnRevenge (1981). In a superficial sense,rnhis Mystery to a Solution has a smallerrntopic than he has heretofore attacked,rnbut his treatment of Borges and Poe is sornwide-ranging in its references and so unrelentingrnin its unfolding of logical, psychological,rnand linguistic enigmas that itrnseems to be his biggest as well as his bestrnproduction. Perhaps here I can merelyrnindicate something of this book’s scope.rnStrictly speaking, Irwin has set himselfrnthe limited task of showing the relationshiprnof Borges’s three detective stories,rn”The Garden of Forking Paths,” “Deathrnand the Compass,” and “Ion Hakkanrnal-Bokhari, Dead in His Labyrinth,”rnto Poc’s three stories of Monsieur C.rnAuguste Dupin, “The Murders in thernRue Morgue,” “The Mystery of MariernRoget,” and “The Purloined Letter.” Inrndoing so, Irwin’s heroic quest for knowledgernrequires a labyrinthine tour of whatrnwe may think of as the ultimate canonicalrnidol—Western civilization itself asrnexpressed as an act of mind. This entailsrnexploration of the Bible, Greek mythology,rntragedy, and philosophy; of the logicrnof doubling, even and odd, handedness,rnand chess; of the history of mathematicsrnand of the curricula of the Ecole Polyteehnique,rnGambridge, the University ofrnVirginia, and West Point; and ultimatelyrnof the ground on which Poe and Borgesrnand Irwin meet. That locus, if I understandrnit, has to do with mirroring mirrors,rnwith a dream within a dream as we recallrnit from Lewis Carroll. Here Pvthagorasrnand Plato, Freud and Jung, and Poe andrnBorges seem to recur in an eternal Mobiusrnstrip that is at once history, literature,rnand intellect. Ultimately, what Irwinrnhas addressed himself to is thernnature of self-consciousness itself, andrntherefore the nature of mind and evenrnhumanity, rather than a matter of literaryrnallusion and influence, or even literaryrnself-referentiality.rnAnd this is his triumph—his transcendencernof his material bv his thoroughgoingrnimmersion in it. The Mystery to arnSolution will join Daniel Hoffman’s PoernPoe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe as a necessaryrnstudy of one obvious topic, and it is thernbest book as well on Borges. But its readershiprnshould by no means be restrictedrnto those fascinated by these authors. Irwin’srntreatment of the primordial legendsrnof Oedipus and Theseus is the mostrninstructive and revealing I have everrnseen, and alone justify the book. Hisrnmathematical and logical forays will appealrnas well to tliose who know DouglasrnHofstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach: AnrnEternal Golden Braid (1979). Above all,rnIrwin’s book will please all readers whornrequire of a book that it exemplify itsrntopic. After all, we have heard a lot in thernlast generation about the primacy of criticism,rnbut rarely have we seen an examplernthat would justify its most imperialrnclaims. We cannot fail to notice that Irwin’srnanalysis of mind is a product of thernmind of Irwin. Irwin’s practical andrnspeculative criticism is itself an examplernof the thematization of the act of readingrnwhich he attributes to Poe’s fictionsrn—”naming the story after the centralrnsymbolic object the story presentsrnand . . . making that symbolic object arntext.”rnIn other words, this study of self-referentialityrnis self-referential. I feel free tornsay so particularly because, first. ProfessorrnIrwin has himself noted his personalrnrelationship with Jorge Luis Borges, andrneven included the record of his own bestrnchess game, played against a man namedrnBorges; and because, second, in thernstructure of his book he has acknowledgedrnhis own doublings, mirror-images,rnand labyrinthine rccurrals. He has alsornindicated that he has books on F. ScottrnFitzgerald and Hart Crane in progress.rnThe evidence of The Mystery to a Solutionrnis that there is already a growingrncircle of privileged readers waiting forrnthem.rnJ.O. Tate is a professor of English atrnDowling College on Long Island.rnThe Fixerrnby Gerald RussellornSly and Able: A PoliticalrnBiography ofrnJames F. Byrnesrnby David RobertsonrnNew York: W.W. Norton;rn639 pp., $29.95rnThis new biography of one of therngreat “fixers” in American politicalrnlife, James F. Byrnes, creates the impressionrnof an American Ozymandias, proclaimingrnby example the ephemerality ofrnhuman greatness. Byrnes and his politicalrncolleagues did mold the world inrnwhich we live long after the last of themrndied; yet the scene of waste remains, asrnthe life of James Byrnes, almost all of itsrn90 years spent in the public sphere in anrnastonishing array of positions—memberrnof both houses of Congress, SupremernCourt Justice, secretary of state, governorrn—extends itself before us. JamesrnByrnes was in many ways an honest andrncommitted public servant, yet even he,rnno matter how sly or able (and he wasrnindeed both) could not resist beingrnincreasingly consumed by the steadyrnpossession of public power.rnSly and Able presents a vibrant, atrntimes colorful account of a nation strugglingrnto define and accommodate itselfrnto rapidly changing social and economicrnrealities. Robertson throughout the bookrngives us glimpses of a world barely remembered:rnthe “palmetto stump” campaigningrnin turn-of-the-eentury SouthrnCarolina, the great textile mill strikes ofrnthe 1930’s, and the forgotten figures,rngreat and small, that populated Americanrnpolitical life earlier in this century.rnByrnes’s career was spent largely as a participant,rnand his life (1882-1972) spansrnmost of the significant post-Civil Warrnevents of American politics. In somernrespects, “Jimmy” Byrnes’s is a classicrnHoratio Alger story. His family, refugeesrnfrom the Irish potato famine, arrived inrnSouth Carolina almost two decades beforernthe attack on Fort Sumter, and byrnthe e’c of hostilities had acquired significantrnland holdings along the coast.rnAfter the war the family wealth dissipated,rnand the senior Byrnes moved tornCharleston to find work; bv the time Jimmyrnwas born, his father was dead fromrntuberculosis. The Byrnes family wasrnpoor again, and the son passed up collegernto support his family.rnExcept for short periods in private lawrnpractice, James Byrnes’s every positionrnwas in some way connected to government,rnbeginning with his jobs as courtrnstenographer and later court solicitorrnin Spartanburg, From there he enteredrnCongress, as a representative for thernSecond District. While in Congress hernmet his first political mentor, the oneeyedrnSenator “Pitchfork” Ben Tillmanrnof South Carolina. Farmer and agrarianrnradical, Tillman was the first in a linernof prominent “fathers” who includedrnWoodrow Wilson, Bernard Baruch, andrnFranklin Roosevelt. Each of these rela-rnNOVEMBER 1995/41rnrnrn