Phd Thesis Submission Joseph Thomas RH English
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
PhD Thesis Title: The City and The Other: representations of foreign and familiar experience in urban settings in contemporary crime fiction Name: Joseph Edward Thomas Institution: Royal Holloway, University of London Degree: Practice-based PhD in English Declaration of Authorship I, Joseph Edward Thomas hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: ______________________ Date: ________________________ 2 Abstract: The thesis is composed of two parts: One) a creative component: Paradise City, a literary crime novel. Two) a critical component: Representations of the city in the work of David Peace – ‘anti-crime’, transnational writing, and the city voice. The creative component explores the impact on São Paulo of three recent historical events: construction projects for the 2014 World Cup; the Mensalão political corruption trial; Operação Saturação, a Military Police operation in Paraisópolis, the largest favela in central São Paulo. Research involves experimentation with narrative forms to create a fictional world that mirrors the experience of contemporary life from a variety of social backgrounds in a thriving and economically and culturally rich urban setting. Brazilian and ex-pat characters feature. I explore the differences in interacting with a city-space from these foreign and familiar perspectives and the extent to which the city itself defines the place and status of character. The critical component is a study of the fiction of David Peace, specifically: his use of urban settings, the creation of a city voice, and the perspectives of place from authorial and character viewpoints. Peace examines in his fiction why particular crimes happen in particular places at particular times. On a stylistic level, I am drawn to Peace’s work for its immersive intensity and the blending of voices and forms; the predominantly fracturing narratives are an effective means of communicating and writing the city. A key contribution to knowledge is the concept of a city voice and how it is achieved in contemporary fiction, alongside deepening understanding of the importance of urban space and culture on literary works. The idea of the emigrating writer and questions raised by transnational ideas were a spur in investigating how we understand place as practitioners. 3 Table of contents: Part One: Creative component Title: Paradise City, a novel pg. 5 Part Two: Critical component Title: Representations of the city in the work of David Peace – ‘anti-crime’, transnational writing, and the city voice pg. 282 0. Introduction pg. 283 1. Why there? Why then? pg. 288 2. The anti-crime novel pg. 297 2.1 The anti-crime city pg. 315 3. Tokyo and the transnationl writer pg. 323 3.1 The city in transition pg. 353 4. The city voice pg. 359 4.1 The city as a story pg. 366 5. Conclusion pg. 369 6. Bibliography pg. 372 4 Part One: Creative component – a novel Title: Paradise City 5 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Matthew: 23:27, 23:28 Transformam o país inteiro num puteiro Pois assim se ganha mais dinheiro They turn a whole country into a whorehouse Because that way it makes more money Cazuza, O tempo não para 6 Part One: Pai rico, filho nobre, neto pobre Traditional saying 7 Every man for himself and God for all Favela Chic – São Paulo, 2012. Operação Saturação – 500 Military police from Batalhão de Choque and from 16º Batalhão de Polícia Militar Metropolitano (BPM/M) installed in favela Paraisópolis – Paradise City – in response to escalating violence in the city. Result: In one month – 107 detained. 67 caught in the act. 24 traficantes on the wanted list sought out and captured. 16 teenagers apprehended. Result: In one month – 18 weapons, 407 rounds of ammunition, 1 grenade. Result: In one month – 59 kilos of Cocaine, 344.3 kilos of Cannabis, 783 grams of Crack. Result: In one month – Homicides fall threefold, incidents of theft drop, no cases of rape. Fucking result, they say. Stray bullet collateral: a consequence, know what I mean – Não tem problema nenhum. Absolute fucking result – Happy fucking days, amigo. 8 Paraisópolis, Paradise City, the largest favela in central São Paulo – November 2011 The streets pounded with Baile funk, and flip-flopped men in dark glasses stood around the car, watching the five dirt roads that joined at the junction. The sun slipped down out of sight of the favela crater, below the line of the city. Naked bulbs were scattered about the rooftops of the surrounding houses, each illuminating a few circular feet. Rusted tin doors squeaked, opened into the gloom and faint rectangles spilled onto the street, were still for a moment and then vanished. Renata left her legal aid office an hour later than normal. She’d been helping a man with a dispute over land. He was expecting another child and wanted to extend the rough house his family lived in. But a bar owner and a tyre shop were unhappy with the plans. Renata had slipped easily into the space of the disagreement, fluid, empathic, and negotiated a compromise. The man had just visited her office to bless her and offer his respects. He’d talked for a long time. She didn’t like leaving after dark. She scanned the street. A cockroach zipped out from the back of the por kilo restaurant where she ate her lunch every day. The owner – a large woman – stepped out from behind the counter and in three steps had crunched it under her plastic sandals. She smiled at Renata, who waved and dug her keys out of her bag. Fireworks spat and crackled, and the men standing by the car turned, recognising the warning from the top end of the favela. Police. Renata tensed, struggled with the padlock to her office, dropped it. She glanced nervously at the restaurant owner who stood with her arms crossed, shaking her head, clicking and sucking her teeth, before stepping back behind the counter and pulling down the metal grille. Renata looked over her shoulder, watched as the men skirted around the cars across the road, crouched. Someone was shouting instructions to one of the younger boys. The Military Police would be here soon. These invasions were becoming 9 commonplace, but this one was earlier in the evening than normal. Should she go back inside or try to get to her car? She told herself not to panic, that she had a little more time. The door was locked now. But better to get back inside, she thought. Surprised by a single siren-wail and blue-red flash she fumbled her key, watched it fall into the gutter and bounce towards the uncovered drain. The men drinking at the bar flinched then ducked under the tables. She pulled at the padlock. The maids and nannies walking home carrying their céstas of rice and beans started and scattered down the side roads. The heat pulsed like a heartbeat, the clouds thickened and cracked. More shouts. Running. Renata froze. She looked across the road. The Military Police were advancing. Men in flip-flops ran from shadow to shadow. One was carrying a pistol, arm lowered. Then, an unholy rattle. Renata took a step towards her car, limbs pushing though water. This is happening. Gunfire. Strobing light. And Renata glimpsed him – the last thing she ever saw. A teenager with gold teeth grinning, his rifle too powerful for him to control, police moving towards him from all sides. 10 One year later Leme sat in his car on the edge of Paraisópolis, sweating in the fattening sun. Workers gathered by the bus stop, forming a queue that stretched up beyond the tyre shops and burnt-out cars, sipping at coffee they’d bought from the usual woman. Leme watched her drag the table up the hill from her home every day. He traced the dust in the car window with his fingertip. He drew a heart and then smudged it, glanced in the wing mirror. His sunglasses hid his hollowed eyes. He stared at the street and shut everything else down. He’d sat here, or close, almost every morning for a year. No one knew. It was his own routine, part of his own struggle: automatic now, a way of not forgetting, not giving up. Anything he had got in life was in part down to his persistence, his wife, Renata, included. And so here he was. Again. The stink of rubbish drifted up the road, but he left his windows open at the top. Slum-happy dogs nosed about in the mess, pulling out scraps. This was Morumbi, only a five-minute drive to Leme’s own apartment block, with its swimming pool and tennis court, its sauna and its restaurant. Renata’s apartment. He’d moved in with her and now it was his, alone. Across Avenida Giovanni Gronchi, the school gates opened and security shifts changed over. Cars crawled up the hill from the other side, turning left towards the city. Morumbi was empty once. São Paulo crept out from its centre like a stain. Trucks rattled past. On the forecourt of a garage on the corner to Leme’s left, a temporary Military Police post was manned by two officers standing next to motorbikes, lights flashing, hands on the guns at their sides. He hadn’t told them he’d be there.