Nihilism, Self-Destruction and the (Im)Possibility of Escape in Contemporary Transgressive Fictions
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NIHILISM, SELF-DESTRUCTION AND THE (IM)POSSIBILITY OF ESCAPE IN CONTEMPORARY TRANSGRESSIVE FICTIONS. Rachid M’Rabty A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Manchester Metropolitan University for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Manchester Metropolitan University 2019 [2] ABSTRACT The proliferation of violence and transgression in mainstream media and society is often cited as undermining the radical impact of transgression or subversion within contemporary literature. This thesis, however, argues that a self-destructive ethos of resistance resonates in transgressive fiction, since 1990. Throughout this dissertation, I consider the significant works of four key contemporary writers, Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, J.G. Ballard and Thomas Ligotti, to explore responses to cultural, political and philosophical discontent and readdress the value of transgression in what I loosely term fictions of self-destruction. Their fictions, I posit, explore acts and fantasies of corporeal, metaphysical and suicidal self-destruction as the key philosophical and affective issues at stake for the protagonists who seek to articulate a divergent response to, or escape from, existential and socio-political factors or concerns. These authors (to varying extents) set a new benchmark for a philosophically controversial (or negativistic) mode of literary transgression. Moreover, the critical relevance of self-destruction as a subversive fantasy is now even more crucial, particularly when attempting to re-validate transgressive literatures as a satirical, artistic form that responds to palpable socio-political and existential concerns related to a nihilistic culture, the naturalisation of the logic of excess and consumption, and the supposed horror of existence. This thesis examines how these fictions engage with self-destructive tropes and ideas as a means of distraction or escape in a world devoid of feasible alternative. In this way, this study of entropic and philosophical self- destruction in contemporary literature does not necessarily propose any practical solutions or a new kind of radical politics applicable in the real world. It does, however, regard self-destructive and fatalistic transgressions as pertaining to an otherwise impossible fantasy of escape from or resistance to the intolerable postmodern and neoliberal worlds presented in these fictions. At stake in this thesis, then, is the establishment of self-destruction as a central concern within studies of literary transgression in contemporary fiction that follows the revalidation of increasingly controversial or denigrated concepts of literary transgression. [3] CONTENTS ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. 2 CONTENTS ............................................................................................................. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................... 4 INTRODUCTION — VIOLENCE, NIHILISM AND NEOLIBERALISM IN CONTEMPORARY FICTIONS OF SELF-DESTRUCTION ......................................................................... 5 Chasing the Unacceptable: Self-Destruction as Speculative and Political Exteriority ........................ 5 The Value of Contemporary Transgressive Fictions ............................................................ 37 CHAPTER ONE — THE FAILURE TO TRANSGRESS: BRET EASTON ELLIS’S AMERICAN PSYCHO (1991), VIOLENCE AND THE CRITIQUE OF NEOLIBERAL CAPITALISM .......................................................................................................... 61 Reading American Psycho Critically ........................................................................................ 61 No Exit: Violence and the Horror of Capitalism Realism .................................................... 73 Re-valuing Violence in American Psycho ............................................................................... 85 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 98 CHAPTER TWO — DESTRUCTION AS AFFIRMATION IN THE EXTREME COMMUNITIES OF CHUCK PALAHNIUK’S FIGHT CLUB (1996) AND HAUNTED (2005) ........................................................................................................................... 101 Issues in Reading the Fiction of Chuck Palahniuk ............................................................. 101 Fight Club and the Confrontation with Death ...................................................................... 115 Disobedience and Self-Control in Haunted .......................................................................... 127 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 140 CHAPTER THREE — COMPLICITY, RESISTANCE AND TERMINAL TRANSGRESSION IN J.G. BALLARD’S SUPER-CANNES (2000) AND MILLENNIUM PEOPLE (2003) .... 145 Introduction: Transgression and Psychopathology Against Degenerative Realism in J. G. Ballard ...................................................................................................................................... 145 ‘Nightmare at Eden’: Accelerating Transgression and Complicity in Super-Cannes . 159 Failed Resistance, ‘Terminal’ Transgression and Millennium People ........................... 172 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 186 CHAPTER FOUR — TRANSGRESSION AND PESSIMISM IN THOMAS LIGOTTI’S WORKPLACE HORRORS ..................................................................................... 191 Introduction: Ligotti as a Transgressive Writer, or the Hermeneutics of Horror ........ 191 Ligotti, Pessimistic Realism and the Suffering of Existence ........................................... 201 Strategies of Escape in Thomas Ligotti’s Workplace Horror ........................................... 218 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 233 CONCLUSION — POST-HOPE FICTIONS, OR ‘NO HAPPY ENDINGS, NO APOLOGIAS, NO EXCUSES, NO REDEMPTION, [AND] NO ESCAPE’ ..................... 237 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................... 251 [4] ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing a thesis dissertation is like a totally deranged pursuit within the excesses and idiocies of our own delirious thoughts. Though, as I have found, with the encouragement, support and guidance of fellow delirious creatures, these seemingly strange activities in academia can be refined into something more than simply taxing and arduous mental and physical labour, but a highly rewarding, exciting and truly inspiring experience. On this note, I would like to thank to all my fellow PhD students at Manchester Metropolitan for their advice, suggestions, ideas and support throughout the course of this degree. Thanks especially to Jon Greenaway, Matt Graham, Adam Westall, Hanan Ben Nafa, Cat McDermott, Spencer Meeks, Andreea Ros, Kate Burn and Aly Edwards. A great deal of thanks also should be paid to my supervisory team, Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes, Dr Nikolai Duffy and Dr Linnie Blake for their brilliant and tireless hard work, support and guidance. To each of you, working with you has been a pleasure and an honour and I am grateful to have learnt so much from you all in working with you over these past years. Thanks also to Dr Sorcha Ní Fhlainn and Dr Lloyd Strickland, to Kate Johnson and Deborah Bown for their kind words, advice and support along the way. Thanks to the Student Hub team for letting me get on with this when I perhaps should have been doing the job I have been getting paid for. Above all, thanks to my family and friends who have supported and encouraged me through the ups and downs and through everything that this PhD has thrown at me. [5] INTRODUCTION — VIOLENCE, NIHILISM AND NEOLIBERALISM IN CONTEMPORARY FICTIONS OF SELF-DESTRUCTION Chasing the Unacceptable: Self-Destruction as Speculative and Political Exteriority Fictions of Self-Destruction: Against Contemporary Neoliberalism In Chuck Palahniuk’s short story ‘Zombies’ (2015), the narrator describes how the younger generation in his town are lobotomizing themselves to regress into an infantile, anti-social state to relieve themselves of a future ‘lifetime of bullshit’.1 The teenagers are pessimistic about the contemporary world that they live in and seek a way out. The brain-damaged state they desire is a self-destructive measure that negates and escapes the cultural-political pressures and expectations of the contemporary world. Witnessing the extent to which the threat of self-destruction and the pain of the ‘loss’ of a younger generation bonds society together, Trevor, the narrator, for a time resists. However, despite the increasing moral and ethical condemnation of the self-destructive youth revolt, by the end of the narrative Trevor seems to have accepted the spiteful and pessimistic logic of those he has observed and the story ends with the narrator at the precipice of the decision whether to follow his peers. As the narrative demonstrates, self-destruction is a contentious issue, at once a welcome and affirmative method of escape and a spiteful regression and indictment of a failed cultural and