Art and Ventriloquism

DAVID Goldblatt's thoughtful and scholarly book, Art and Ventriloquism, is a book about voices. It operates at various levels. First, Goldblatt provides a philosophical analysis of the practice of ventriloquism. Second, he pushes the idea of ventriloquism as an interpretive device for understanding the words of various philosophers, in particular Socrates, Nietzsche, Foucault, and Cavell. Finally, Goldblatt reflects on how far ventriloquism can be extended as a metaphor for understanding artistic practices. For the purposes of this review, I shall concentrate on the first and third levels of analysis. The core of the book is Goldblatt's analysis of ventriloquism, exemplars of which are the performance routines of such American showbusiness icons as Shari Lewis and her sock puppet, Lambchop, and, above all, Edgar Bergen and the dummy on his knee, Charlie McCarthy. The technique of being able to talk without moving one's lips, of ‘throwing’ one's voice, is fascinating enough but, on Goldblatt's view, ventriloquism is something more. It is a special case of what the Greeks called ecstasis, a stepping beside the self. One knows that the voices are always Bergen's but one also has the sense that the usually reserved, deferential Bergen steps outside himself to talk to the contumacious, caustic, and generally outrageous Charlie. Moreover, in the interplay of the two distinct characters, Bergen in effect talks with himself. (Goldblatt is agnostic on the question of whether Bergen's performance reveals an alter ego, a repressed self, a catharsis, a cathexis, or any other variety of depth psychological phenomenon.)

Aesthetics · Art · Catharsis · Linguistics · Literature · Metaphor · Reflexive pronoun · Philosophy · Visual Culture and Art Theory