The novel and the police Book

A fascinating take on the presence (and occasionally the meaningful absence) of the police in Victorian novels, this book argues that our thinking, actions, and even identity are all controlled by external forces that either police us with the forces of the law and the state or get us to police ourselves with the forces of norms, respectability, and self-control. Miller takes for granted that his reader has at least a passing familiarity with the novels he analyzes, which means the chapters on novels I have read (Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, The Woman in White) were significantly easier to follow than the chapters on novels I haven't read (The Moonstone, Bleak House, Barchester Towers). Miller's explicit engagement with other scholars is almost entirely relegated to footnotes, which makes the body of his text seem ostensibly less academic, when in actuality it is highly academic but with references that are often apparent only to those who are already in the know. The best parts of the book are when Miller expands from thinking about the policing happening within the novels the policing happening between the novel and the reader. Novels train readers to look for and look up to the police, but novels also train readers to police themselves. Our own reading habits become as much a police force as the officers of the state.