American Fiction in the Age of Capitalist Realism
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SECOND NATURE:AMERICAN FICTION IN THE AGE OF CAPITALIST REALISM Matt Kavanagh, Department of English McGill University, Montreal March 2007 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Ph.D © Matt Kavanagh 2007 ii Abstract SECOND NATURE:AMERICAN FICTION IN THE AGE OF CAPITALIST REALISM During the 1990s the global triumph of capitalism has made it, paradoxically, all the more difficult to see. Not only is capitalism increasingly derealized (e.g. cyber- capital), its very ubiquity renders it unremarkable, to the point that it appears a neutral part of objective reality. This dissertation examines how American writers have responded to the ‘spectrality’ that results from the mediation of everyday experience through the market. I discuss formal strategies in the work of Bret Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, Don DeLillo, William Gibson and others to represent the unrepresentable: what Slavoj iek calls the impersonal and anonymous function of the global market mechanism. Chapter one provides a formalist reading of Ellis’s American Psycho, a novel whose claustrophobic narrative represents the world of late capitalism at the level of its concept (“This is not an exit”). Lacking any sense of a horizon, Patrick Bateman experiences the world as radically closed. Because he is incapable of recognizing an elsewhere, he cannot imagine an otherwise; demonstrating no awareness of antagonism, Patrick acts it out in increasingly brutal and frenetic outbursts of violence. Where American Psycho presents Patrick’s sadistic violence as a symptom, my second chapter suggests that Fight Club’s consensual beatings treat violence as a fetish. Palahniuk’s novel aims to domesticate antagonism by staging it as a piece of masochist theatre. Its limits, however, are painfully apparent. Fight Club’s strategy of fetishistic disavowal has pathological effects, namely, the narrator’s split personality. Chapter three discusses DeLillo’s critique of cyber-capital: a vision of the market as a perpetual motion machine, one capable of circulating solely on its own momentum without reference to anything beyond itself. Inevitably, though, antagonism reasserts itself in the form of a collateral crisis—the subject of Cosmopolis, which takes place during the stock market meltdown of April 2000 and offers its protagonist as the proximate cause. In the conclusion, I return to the question of ‘capitalist’ realism by exploring the depiction of post-Soviet Russia in recent fiction by Gibson and Womack. I argue that the spectacle of ‘actually existing capitalism’ renders cyberpunk speculation redundant; the dystopian future once predicted has not only arrived, it is already beginning to recede into our recent past. iii Sommaire DEUXIÈME NATURE : LA FICTION AMÉRICAINE À L’ÉPOQUE DU RÉALISME CAPITALISTE Au cours des années 1990, le triomphe mondial du capitalisme a paradoxalement rendu les choses plus difficiles à voir. Le capitalisme est non seulement de plus en plus déréalisé (p. ex. : cybercapital), son ubiquité même le rend imperceptible, à un point tel qu’il semble être un élément neutre de la réalité objective. La présente dissertation aborde comment les auteurs américains ont réagi à la « spectralité » qui fait en sorte que l’expérience quotidienne est de plus en médiatisée au sein du marché. J’examine les stratégies formelles des œuvres de Bret Ellis, Chuck, Palahniuk, Don DeLillo, William Gibson et autres auteurs afin de représenter ce qui ne peut être représenté : ce que Slavoj iek appelle la fonction impersonnelle et anonyme des rouages du marché mondial. Le premier chapitre se veut une interprétation formelle de l’œuvre American Psycho d’Ellis, un roman dont la narration claustrophobe représente le monde du capitalisme tardif au niveau de son concept (« This is not an exit »). Souffrant d’un manque de perspective, Patrick Bateman vit une expérience du monde très fermée. Puisqu’il est incapable de reconnaître ailleurs, il ne peut s’imaginer autrement; faisant preuve d’un manque de connaissance de l’antagonisme, Patrick présente des excès de brutalité frénétique de plus en plus violents. Bien qu’American Psycho présente la violence sadique de Patrick comme étant un symptôme, mon deuxième chapitre laisse entendre que les raclées consensuelles de Fight Club traitent la violence en tant que fétiche. Le roman de Palahniuk vise à domestiquer l’antagonisme en en faisant une pièce de théâtre masochiste. Toutefois, ses limites sont affreusement évidentes. La stratégie de Fight Club de manque de foi pathologique a une incidence, entre autres sur le dédoublement de personnalité du narrateur. Le troisième chapitre aborde la critique de DeLillo sur le cybercapital : une vision du marché en tant que machine en mouvement perpétuel, capable de circuler uniquement à son propre rythme sans référence à quoi que ce soit au-delà d’elle-même. Mais inévitablement, l’antagonisme se réaffirme sous forme de crise collatérale – le sujet de Cosmopolis, qui se déroule pendant la chute des marchés boursiers d’avril 2000 et qui propose son protagoniste en tant que cause immédiate. En conclusion, je reviens à la question du réalisme « capitaliste » en explorant la représentation de la Russie postsoviet dans la récente œuvre de fiction de Gibson et Womack. Je fais valoir que le spectacle du « capitalisme qui existe vraiment » écrase la spéculation cyberpunk; l’avenir dystopienne que l’on attendait n’a pas vu le jour, et commence à être relégué dans notre passé récent. iv Acknowledgements In terms of material assistance, I am very grateful to have received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the J.W. McConnell Foundation and McGill University during the course of my doctoral studies. A number of professors in McGill’s Department of English have seen this project through from its inception. I’d particularly like to thank Mike Bristol, Peter Gibian, Derek Nystrom, Allan Hepburn and Berkeley Kaite—all stepped in and provided valuable advice and criticism when it was needed. Imre Szeman of McMaster University provided ongoing counsel. Stressing the importance of close reading and theoretical sophistication, my supervisor Sean Carney provided a model of scholarship I can only hope to emulate. In terms of logistical support, I want to convey my appreciation for Dorothy Bray, Berkeley Kaite and Wes Folkerth, who all served at one time or another as director of graduate studies during my time at McGill. I would also like to thank the always-helpful staff in the Department of English, including everyone in the front office as well as Sina Troiano, Valentina Matsangos and Maria Vasile, Specific thanks are due to the following: Anonymous readers from the journal Contemporary Literature provided valuable feedback on an early draft of my first chapter. Author Chuck Palahniuk, the subject of my second chapter, graciously consented to discuss his work with me in an interview (see Appendix). Hunter Hayes, meanwhile, helpfully provided me with a copy of a SF Eye devoted to Jack Womack. An interview contained therein offered plenty of insights that proved invaluable to my discussion of Womack’s fiction and relation with William Gibson in the conclusion. Thanks are also due to Riyaz Lalani for a series of exchanges about contemporary finance and hedge funds that informed chapter three. Family and friends have been steadfast. Several people went above and beyond. Tim Walters read much of this manuscript in the late stages and his counsel made the difference. Robin Feenstra, Dave Wright and the rest of my peers at McGill shared with me the strange manias and cheerful obsessions that writing a dissertation is all about. All of this pales, however, to the debt of love and gratitude that I owe Meg. This project would not have been possible without her; she believed in me—and for me—when I did not. This is for her. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements iv Introduction 1. Preamble: towards a theory of capitalist realism 2. The realism of capital: finance and fictitious capital 3. The problem of realism after postmodernism 4. From possessive individualism to the individual possessed 1 Chapter one Homecoming at Camden College: An American Psycho returns to his alma mater 77 Chapter two Soap Opera, or the Gospel of Tyler 161 Chapter three In the ruins of the futures: Don DeLillo’s Critique of Cyber-capital 231 Conclusion From the New Economy to the New Russia: Cyberpunk’s Last Frontier 315 Works Cited 365 Appendix An Interview with Chuck Palahniuk 389 vi INTRODUCTION Capitalism is the first socio-economic order which detotalizes meaning: it is not global at the level of meaning (there is no global ‘capitalist world view’, no ‘capitalist civilization’ proper—the fundamental lesson of globalization is precisely that capitalism can accommodate itself to all civilizations, from Christian to Hindu and Buddhist); its global dimension can only be formulated at the level of truth-without-meaning, as the ‘Real’ of the global market mechanism. — Slavoj iek Post-Modern finance constitutes the Formalism of the Real World. — Charles Newman Preamble: towards a theory of capitalist realism This dissertation proceeds from a single overarching idea: during the 1990s the global triumph of capitalism has made it, paradoxically, all the more difficult to see. Not only is capitalism increasingly derealized (e.g. digitalized cyber-capital), its very ubiquity renders it unremarkable, to the point that it appears a neutral part of objective reality. Globalization transforms capitalism from an ideology into an environment, a state of second nature where the ‘invisible hand’ is experienced as destiny itself. This provokes a representational crisis: how does one subjectivize the anonymous background operations of the economy? Can its abstract and impersonal logic be made available to experience? Can the frame be made visible? My dissertation reads American fiction produced during and about this neoliberal moment as examples of what I call capitalist realism.