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The Powers of the False. Reading, Writing, Thinking Beyond Truth and Fiction

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The Powers of the False. Reading, Writing, Thinking Beyond Truth and Fiction The Powers of the False. Reading, Writing, Thinking beyond Truth and Fiction. Het vermogen van het valse. Lezen, schrijven en denken voorbij waarheid en fictie. (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. G.J. van der Zwaan, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op 10 juni 2011 des middags te 4.15 uur door Dorothee Wiese geboren op 1 februari 1969 te Bad Oeynhausen, Duitsland Promotoren: Prof. dr. R. L. Buikema Prof. dr. R. Braidotti This thesis was accomplished with financial support from the European Union (Marie Curie Grant) and the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin (Kennedy Grant). Table of Contents Acknowledgements i-iii List of Abbreviations iv-v Introduction 1 Chapter 1 The Truth of Narration and the Powers of the 14 False 1.1. An introduction to what is unfamiliar and new 14 1.2. The advent of the super-human writer 15 1.3. Minor literature 25 1.4. Escaping orders, accepting invitations 33 1.5. The missing people 37 1.6. The truth of narration 43 1.7. The powers of the false 48 Chapter 2 Accepting complicated legacies by being once 52 removed from the world: Everything is Illuminated (Foer 2002) 2.1. For the love of the world 52 2.2. Constructing complicated legacies 53 2.3. Literature as an ethical apparatus 56 2.4. The blurring boundaries between fiction and reality 59 2.5. Readerly becoming-other 61 2.6. Turning the readers into translators 63 2.7. An experience of incompossible worlds 71 2.8. Once-removed from the world 75 2.9. “The kind of person who chooses for more than chooses 78 against” 2.10. Nomads with the truth 80 2.11. Water shedding moments in time 82 2.12. Creating anew from fragments 85 2.13. The “becoming-unrepeatable” of tradition 87 2.14. The necessity of a palimpsest in reverse 90 2.15. Catastrophic difference and the groundless ground 92 2.16. Photography and the transmission of intermedial 97 knowledge 2.17. She who has been there 100 2.18. The impossible science of the unique being 102 2.19. The return of the living to the dead 105 2.20. A notion of hope and survival in the face of death 107 2.21. Cutting and pasting through time and place 110 2.22. Doubling in another time and in an other's time 113 2.23. The company we keep 114 2.24. A concluding “word for living creatures” 117 Chapter 3 “He looked for truth in facts and not in stories.” 126 Crimes of Historiography and Forces of Fabulation in Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish (2003) 3.1. Introduction 126 3.2. Historiographical accounts of Sarah Island 129 3.3. Revealing the impossibility of detached objectivity: 132 Gould's Book of Fish 3.4. Professional forgers, notorious liars: narrator Gould & 141 narrator Hammet 3.5. Readers, writers, narrators: sharing perceptions and 149 narrative desires 3.6. Reflections on fish-drawings and the drawing of fish 155 3.7. Becoming-fish 164 3.8. A conclusion beyond the netherworld of lost shades 174 Chapter 4 Doing Time, Undoing Race: Richard Powers’s 185 The Time of Our Singing (2003) 4.1. Is literature a “phonograph”? 185 4.2. The novel's doing-time and its powers of the false 188 4.3. “The problem of the color line” 192 4.4. A multitude of voices from different sheets of the past 195 4.5. Making time 201 4.6. The novel as a block universe and its reverberating times 219 4.7. A concluding trip through time via “a brief crack in the 236 side of sound” Conclusion 243 Reference List 259 Appendix 298 Samenvatting in Nederlands Acknowledgements Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends, I to my own heart, I to seek among phrases and fragments something unbroken. Virginia Woolf, The Waves Like any book, this one could not have been written without the inspiration and help of many people. On the academic side, my first thanks go out to Prof Dr Rosemarie Buikema and Prof Dr Rosi Braidotti, who have supervised this book from the beginning, making room in their busy schedules for even the smallest of matters, discussing matter-of-factly or passionately the issues at stake. I am very grateful for the trust and patience they have shown me during the writing- process. Prof Dr Michaela Hampf and Dr Gudrun Löhrer of the John F. Kennedy Institute in Berlin, where I went to research Afro-American musicians and the civil rights movement, as well as Prof Dr Norbert Finzsch of the Unversity of Cologne have also been incredibly helpful. Their accomplished advice and good company made this stay very agreeable indeed. The highly efficient and good-humoured library personnel at the JFK Institute were a glimmer of light at the end of a tunnel of books I burrowed myself into there. Warm thanks are also due to my sister Christine, who gave me a home in Berlin during this stay. I want to express my gratitude to PD Dr Heiko Stoff and PD Dr Maren Möhring who read large parts of this book and gave me highly useful comments and great encouragement. Likewise, Dr Regina Mühlhäuser, Dr Gudrun Löhrer, Therese Roth, Chiara Bonfiglioli and Domitilla Olivieri commented on chapters helpfully and efficiently in times of pressing questions. Dr Alana Gillespie has been of invaluable help in correcting and improving my English. I find it still incredible how much thought and work can go into a thorough reading. Thanks also go out to all my colleagues in Utrecht who supported my work and believed i in me. I want to mention especially Marianne van den Boomen, Erna Kotkamp, Dr Kathrin Thiele, Dr Jamie Weinstein, Dr Babs Boter and Dr Bettina Papenburg, with whom I had the pleasure to teach and from whom I have learned a great deal about teaching. José van Aelst was an incredible help, especially when I needed to keep track of administrative tasks. Trude Oorschot, the kind soul and secret brain behind the Gender Studies Department, has been of invaluable assistance in all kinds of questions, from health insurance in the Netherlands to administrative and personal advice. This book is a hymn of praise about friendship. Without my friends, it would not exist. Wherever they live – Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Hamburg, Marseille, Montreal, Munich, Toronto, Utrecht, Valencia – my friends have given me inspiration, comfort, kindness and happiness. They have offered me hot meals and places to stay, they have laughed with me and wept with me. In a period of time in which I truly changed “countries more often than shoes” (Brecht), they have kept the doors to their homes wide open for me to enter and stay. As such, they have allowed me to square the circle and live in several cities and countries, languages and communities. I want to thank Heiko, Silke, Susanna, Anita, Bettina, Lorena, Gudrun, Sophie, Finzsch, Michaela and Muriel for sharing their hospitality and friendship with me. The Dutch group of Ojala has persuaded me to believe in international solidarity. The feminist self- defence meetings in Spain have been an inexhaustible source of inspiration, good humour, passionate discussions and very funny outbursts of performance art. My Shinson Hapkido and Shotokan Karate trainers and partners have given me Ki and Do, and taught me again and again that the sky is not the limit. I want to thank Begum and Jule for convincing me that Istanbul and Barcelona have suitable cafés in which to write a book. I have been very moved by the generosity and helpfulness of my Amsterdam landlord and landlady, Letteke and Gerard. Moira, Marianne, Kriss, Marjolein, Susan, Lisa, Maren, Judith, Lena, Christina, Claude, Regina, Therese, Nina, Isa, Titch, Evi, Ulf, Marten, Ilona, Johanna, Jo, Alexia, Bettina, Andreas, Eberhard, Cilja, Laura, Domitilla, Sabrina, Risk, Chiara, Annabel, Sibylle, Ruth, Michael and Petra are just some ii of the people that I need to thank for all the good times we shared (and the bad times we endured together, like horses turning our backs on it). Special thanks go out to my family: Werner, Christine, Anke and Robin Wiese. While I was writing this book, my mother passed away and we stood firm together. I am deeply grateful to have enjoyed their solidarity and helpfulness, patience and thoughtfulness in this difficult time. To my mother Marlies, who loved life and faced death fearlessly, who was a truly selfless, giving, sagacious person with great forethought, I dedicate this work. iii List of Abbreviations B Deleuze, Gilles. 1991. Bergsonism. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam. New York: Zone Books. CC Deleuze, Gilles. 1997a. Essays Critical and Clinical. Translated by Daniel W. Smith and Michael A. Greco. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. D2 Deleuze, Gilles, and Claire Parnet. 2006. Dialogues II. Translated by Eliot Ross Albert. London, New York: Continuum. DI Deleuze, Gilles. 2004c. Desert Islands and Other Texts (1953-1974). Translated by Mike Taormina. Cambridge, Mass: Semiotext(e). DR Deleuze, Gilles. 2004b. Difference and Repetition. Translated by Paul Patton. London: Continuum. DW Deleuze, Gilles. 1997b. Differenz und Wiederholung. Translated by Joseph Vogl. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. F Deleuze, Gilles. 1999. Foucault. Edited and translated by Séan Hand. London, New York: Continuum. IC Deleuze, Gilles. 1998. “Having an Idea in Cinema.” Translated by Eleanor Kaufman. In Deleuze & Guattari.
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