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Reading the Novels of Kathy Acker As Simulacra Jennifer Komorowski

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Reading the Novels of Kathy Acker As Simulacra Jennifer Komorowski 49 A Space to Write Woman-Becoming: Reading the Novels of Kathy Acker as Simulacra Jennifer Komorowski The novels of American experimental Guts in High School (1978), I argue that we can un- novelist Kathy Acker make strategic use of pla- derstand the way in which she simultaneously ex- giaristic techniques that function as simulacra, poses how the simulacrum functions while also which serve to undermine the original Platonic making use of the simulacrum to subvert phal- Ideas upon which they are based and in doing locentric language by “appropriating male texts ... so create a new aesthetic existence. In Gilles and trying to fnd [her] voice as a woman” (Fried- Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition (1968), he ex- man 13). Acker admits in an interview with El- amines the role of the simulacra in overturning len G. Friedman that act of rewriting Don Quixote Platonism by denying the primacy of “original (1605) by Miguel de Cervantes was an attempt over copy, of model over image” (66). Deleuze’s to copy out the text with the explicit idea of see- concept is central to interpreting the work of ing “what pure plagiarism would look like” (13).1 Acker as a piece of literature that subverts phal- Instead of the result being a copy of the original locentric writing traditions in order to overcome novel, however, Acker’s Don Quixote “breaks up patriarchal hangovers. I begin by providing an ex- the homogeneity of culture, exposing the numer- planation of this paper’s theoretical groundwork, ous and varied discourses that at any moment which is based on several of Deleuze’s writings infuence and shape each of us” (Pitchford 59). on the concept of simulacrum. After explaining In doing so, the novel becomes Deleuze’s simu- the theory and the importance it holds in relation lacrum. Thus, Acker’s novel is “an image without to Acker’s work, I will then attempt to situate and resemblance” rather than a simple copy, what we connect her writing within a tradition of art and could call “an image endowed with resemblance” literature that was emerging during the 1960s and 1970s. By using a Deleuzian framework to dis- 1 Academics describe her writing differently, with Nicola Pitchford terming her writing process past- cuss the concept of the simulacrum in relation to ische, which “builds her novels out of scraps from- Acker’s novels Don Quixote (1986) and Blood and various literary and popular traditions” (59). Hangover 50 The Word Hoard A Space to Write (Deleuze 357). Through this image, Acker cre- “various versions of feminism that [reinscribed] ates a new aesthetic existence whereby becoming binary difference and [supported] conservative becomes possible. Opening up the possibility for attempts to regulate sexuality” (34). With this becoming means taking a line of fight through in mind, Stiegl explains that “a crucial determi- the process of writing in order to become a mi- nant of how one understands feminist practice nority. The one and only function of writing is has become whether or not one fnds bourgeois to deterritorialize through lines of fight to ex- domesticity bearable” (34). This form of politi- pose “all the minority-becomings of the world” cal feminism was dependent upon “bourgeois (50). This is where the potential exists for Anglo- assimilation,” another form of patriarchal con- American literature to serve as the “hair of the trol that continues to hang over women, and dog,” and alleviate the patriarchal hangover that which Acker would not have been able to toler- is predominant in the Western canon. ate (34). Her writing did not set out to become In the 1970s, feminism was already a so- ideological, but nevertheless opened up the idea cial production for Acker. In the interview with of fnding one’s voice as a woman by appropriat- Friedman cited above, she discusses her disinter- ing and fundamentally changing male language. est in the work of most feminist writers, claiming A criticism often applied to Acker is that she is they are too interested in social realism. Acker not ideological enough, but that is not the way complains, “it’s too much, ‘I used to be in a bad her art works. She sets out in a certain direction nuclear marriage and now I’m a happy lesbian.’ in her writing and ends up taking numerous lines It’s diary stuff and the diary doesn’t go anywhere, of fight before she is fnished, then completes and there’s not enough work with language” (19). her work by framing it within a certain context Although feminists had started to praise Ack- (through the use of the epigraph, reorganization er’s work by the late 1980s, she claims, “I was of the content, etc.) (13). damned by them,” and she believes they hated In order to interpret Acker’s avant-garde her (22). She is openly critical of feminists like literature through a Deleuzian lens, we can frst Andrea Dworkin in her novels, seeming to dis- turn to the dialogue between Deleuze and Claire like the radical feminist approach they take, but Parnet, “On the Superiority of Anglo-American at the same time admiring their willingness to Literature,” from Dialogues II (1977). In this dia- take a stand for feminism. Carol Siegel affrms logue, Deleuze and Parnet discuss the ability of in “The Madness Outside Gender: Travels with Anglo-American literature (in comparison to Don Quixote and Saint Foucault” that “Acker French literature) to “[discover] worlds through was at least as avant-garde in her feminism as a long, broken fight” (36). They characterize the she was in her writing style” (34). She traces the work of writers such as Thomas Hardy, Herman trajectory of the feminism of the 1970s, when Melville, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Wolfe, D. H. Acker emerged in the literary scene, as presenting Lawrence, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Arthur Miller, and Issue 6, 2017 Komorowski 51 Jack Kerouac as “departure, becoming, passage, concept of woman-becoming as a line of fight leap, daemon, relationship with the outside” (36). that is created not by the gender of the writer Acker can be situated in this group of writers be- but by the way they write in order to embrace the cause of her ability to deterritorialize the hege- “minority-becoming of her writing,” thus one monic patriarchy through her writing and to create cannot “force themselves to write like women” a fssure where becoming can become possible. (43). The becoming that is found in Acker’s writ- Although Deleuze and Parnet do not explicitly ing denies the “powers that be” (44) the support mention the concept of the simulacrum in their they would seek through redundancy in the act, discussion of literature, in Deleuze’s earlier work and instead engages in “life-experimentation” he connects the same concepts—becoming, (47) through the act of writing where the aim is daemon, and relationships with the outside or not to fnish with the act of woman-becoming, other—to the overturning of Platonism through but to move beyond minority-becoming until simulacra. In “The Simulacrum and Ancient one is becoming-imperceptible. Philosophy,” from the Appendix of The Logic of Deleuze recognizes that the Platonic Sense (1969), Deleuze emphasizes the difference motivation is interested in “assuring the triumph between the simulacrum and the copy with the of the copies over simulacra, of repressing sim- example of the catechism. Man was created in ulacra, keeping them completely submerged, the image and resemblance of God, but through preventing them from climbing to the surface, sin man has lost the resemblance but keeps the and ‘insinuating themselves’ everywhere” (257). image of God, thus “we have become simulacra” Deleuze continues by defning the simulacrum (257). The sacrifce of man’s moral existence in through its difference in relation to the copy of exchange for aesthetic existence reinforces the the Idea. Rather than being “an infnitely degrad- “demonic character” of the simulacrum (258). ed icon,” or a copy of a copy of a copy, the simu- This demonic characterization provides a direct lacrum is a false pretender, a subversion which connection to the lines of fight which Deleuze maintains the outward appearance of a copy, but and Parnet see in Anglo-American literature re- in fact is dissimilar from both the copy and any vealing the possibility for a piece of literature original Platonic Idea; to overthrow Platonism, to be a simulacrum. The discussion on Anglo- Deleuze believes we must deny the primacy of American writing involves lines of fight which “original over copy, of model over image; glo- are characterized not as imaginary, but real; the rifying the reign of simulacra and refections” writer is “forced to follow, because in reality writ- (66). The simulacrum exists through the action ing involves us there, draws us in there” (43). Fol- of challenging and overturning “the very idea of lowing the lines of fight through Acker’s writing a model or privileged position” (69), and in this makes this reality a becoming, “nothing to do act of overturning any resemblance between the with becoming a writer,” but rather becoming original and the copy is destroyed. It is in the act a minority (43). Deleuze and Parnet defne the of overthrowing the privileged position through Hangover 52 The Word Hoard A Space to Write the simulacrum that we can look for real experi- as Andrea Dworkin, who Acker believes is too ence, rather than possible experience, and create dualistic; in the same interview with Friedman, a “lived reality of a sub-representative domain” Acker also criticizes lesbian literary tropes (13). (69). Rather than the simulacra being something Her inspiration for what she describes as plagia- that is inferior, or seen as coming after an origi- rism actually originates in the work of photo- nal, Acker’s work as simulacra subverts the privi- graphic artist Sherrie Levine.
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