Iconic Books and Texts

Citation

David Ryan (2014), "Iconic Books and Texts", Library Review, Vol. 63 No. 1/2, pp. 161-162. https://doi.org/10.1108/LR-08-2013-0107

This imposing volume brings together a diverse range of content on the “iconic” text. Containing 19 essays from the Iconic Books Symposia of 2007, 2009 and 2010, and three from Idea of Scripture in 2005, it is divided under broad thematic sections ranging from textual analysis to the power dynamics and social implications of the iconicity of such texts within society. The essays are framed in a postmodern light; something which, at times, overshadows much of the content. Indeed, in many of the essays it is hard not to think of Lyotard ' s definition of the postmodern as the hallmark of incredulity with metanarratives in society and, potentially by extension, the spiritual and canonical. A detailed analysis of the iconicity of the text is given through a multitude of perspectives; each exfoliating the mechanics of iconic texts and their role in society. As such, the structure of the content is not subservient to time period or culture. And rightly so, as the editor Watts notes in his introduction, the contributors to the text were brought together by a shared recognition of the phenomenon of ritualizing texts and how iconicity is established.

Appropriately agnostic and unapologetically theoretical in approach, the result is an intelligent, provoking and, at times, effervescent treatise on the subject. The contributors complement each other and evolve post positivist readings on often ill-defined and static truisms. In the opening essay, Watts establishes three dimensions, or shared points of difference, of the iconic or spiritual text, with those being the semantic, performatitive and the iconic, with scriptures being ritualized in all three. Such a framework underscores many of the big media stories, such as the editor ' s examples of controversies over Ten Commandments monuments in courthouses or the Quran ' s desecrated in Guantánamo bay. Then too, as a model, it aligns well with the principles of Aristotelian rhetoric, Logos, Ethos and Phatos. It is clear that there exists potential for tension and ambiguity between the strictly spiritual and the far more intangible iconic. But even this is addressed in the opening stages of the anthology by William Graham, segregating the non-spiritual iconic as being able to reside in two, but never three, of Watt ' s dimensions. Indeed, the arguments presented within sit comfortably with ambiguity, and the very pretext for the book ensures an avoidance of any easy encapsulation or submission to generafication on what is a complex phenomenon rather than just another broad and politically current comparative study.

There is much to suggest that the anthology reflects a collaborative approach, giving a holistic and evolving narrative on the subject matter, indicative of a work borne out of symposia, shared debate and collaboration. The format is telling too; as an anthology it encapsulates and has the authority of exclusion, in the same way as attempts to define canons, spiritual or lay, have been agents for fossilization through their own anthologizing. However, Iconic Books and Texts has the potential to refigure and reopen debate and thinking on the processes of iconicity. There is much here that is new or re-imagined in what is a relatively undocumented, yet influential, subject area. As a trope, the subject of the iconic and spiritual text offers much room for play, and for paradoxes, oppositions and juxtapositions. At times it can be seen that some of this potential is diluted by the post positivist framework and tone of the text, which is, for the most part, steeped in the language of the strictly academic and theoretical. However, for those who are willing, it should be of great appeal to academics and information professionals alike.