SOURCE: Connor, Steven. Review of Stories, Theories, and Things, by Christine Brooke-Rose. Modern Language Review 89, no. 2 (April 1994): 427-28.

In the following review of Stories, Theories, and Things, Connor argues that the volume's strongest essays are those in which Brooke-Rose addresses issues of gender and feminism in literature.

The relationship of literary writers to the institutions of criticism has always been a tense one, even (and perhaps especially) at times such as ours when there is considerable professional traffic between the two realms. The explosion of ‘theory’ in literary studies over the last couple of decades, characterized as it has been by an increased hawkishness among some theorists with regard to the authority of the author, has tended to heighten this sense of jittery stand-off. Christine Brooke-Rose is an example of how to be an exception to this rule, for she has commuted, if not exactly with ease, then...