A Thing Made of Words: The Reflexive Realism of Richard Yates By Leif Bull Student no. 33073581 Goldsmiths College PhD English 1 DECLARATION I hereby declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Leif Bull 2 Abstract This thesis is a study of the work of American novelist and short story writer Richard Yates. Taking as its starting point the consensus view of Richard Yates as a realist operating during a period of strong anti-realist currents in American literature, the thesis seeks to complicate this notion, arguing instead for a reading of Richard Yates' work as a mode of realism that could only have emerged after modernism, a realism that focussed on a number of concerns and problems regarding representation and interpretation shared with literary postmodernism, and which anticipates recent and current trends within American literary fiction. Its main areas of investigation are Yates' take on everyday language as a site of entropy; his use of intertextuality, in particular in relation to the short story; tensions between realism's claim to cognitive/visual authority and epistemological uncertainty; concerns and anxieties around masculinity within American realism; his use of autobiographical material in relation to the psychoanalytic theories of Melanie Klein and D. W. Winnicott; the impact of media saturation on subjectivity, with particular focus on cliché. 3 A THING MADE OF WORDS: THE REFLEXIVE REALISM OF RICHARD YATES ........................................................................................ 1 ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................... 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................... 7 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 8 Realism: Definitions, accusations, and defenses during postmodernity ............................................ 9 The influence of Flaubert, and its significance ................................................................................... 15 Some aesthetic strategies of the realist novel, and their relevance to a study of Richard Yates .... 18 An American and a realist, but an American realist? ....................................................................... 21 Technological innovation and the realist/modernist/postmodernist continuum ............................. 26 McHale, Cohen, Hassan: Some definitions of postmodernist poetics .............................................. 29 Chapters ................................................................................................................................................ 31 Survey of Yates Criticism .................................................................................................................... 35 CHAPTER ONE: REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, OR, SAND IN THE REALIST MACHINERY ................................................................................................. 50 Lilian Furst: Realism, the visual, and fictionality .............................................................................. 51 Cecelia Tichi: Modernism and the machine ....................................................................................... 53 The professional-managerial classes, real and fictional .................................................................... 55 Emma and April ................................................................................................................................... 77 The exhausted engine of capitalist desire ........................................................................................... 81 Philip Roth: ‘Writing American Fiction’ ........................................................................................... 86 CHAPTER TWO: ELEVEN KINDS OF LONELINESS, ELEVEN KINDS OF WRITER’S BLOCK ........................................................................................ 88 Frank O’Connor: On the margins ...................................................................................................... 89 Debunking rhythms .............................................................................................................................. 94 4 ‘It’s just something to do’ .................................................................................................................... 98 Generic difference and intertextual play .......................................................................................... 101 Writer’s block, writerly impotence ................................................................................................... 107 Narration and irony ........................................................................................................................... 108 Nick Adams and Robert Prentice ...................................................................................................... 114 CHAPTER THREE: WAR, WORK, MASCULINITY .................................... 123 Writing as labour ................................................................................................................................ 124 Men at war .......................................................................................................................................... 126 Prelude to war: A Good School, homosocial desire and spectacular masculinity......................... 130 At war with the domestic: ‘A Compassionate Leave’ and A Special Providence ......................... 140 After the war: Toy soldiers ................................................................................................................ 160 CHAPTER FOUR: AUTOBIOGRAPHY, PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PLAY 163 Issues of genre ..................................................................................................................................... 164 Melanie Klein, splitting and storytelling .......................................................................................... 167 D. W. Winnicott and Vladimir Nabokov: Between internal and external ..................................... 168 Nabokov: Further notes on play, and on the role of detail ............................................................. 169 Life and/as literature .......................................................................................................................... 172 All about mother ................................................................................................................................. 174 Disturbing the Peace: Banishing the scapegoat ............................................................................... 188 CHAPTER FIVE: YATES AFTER POSTMODERNISM ............................... 195 Robert Rebein: The revitalisation of realism ................................................................................... 196 After postmodernism .......................................................................................................................... 201 A. M Homes: Suburban surrealism .................................................................................................. 204 David Foster Wallace: Postmodernism as the cultural logic of late capitalism indeed ................ 207 Richard Yates on Hollywood ............................................................................................................. 219 Disturbing the Peace: The nervous breakdown as tired lot device ................................................ 226 Frank Wheeler: Sitcom dad............................................................................................................... 230 5 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................. 233 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................... 245 6 Acknowledgements The following have all enabled this project in various ways, and so I wish to extend my sincerest gratitude to: my supervisors, Dr Josh Cohen and Dr Rick Crownshaw, for all their advice, clarity of vision, and always constructive criticism; Dr Jacqueline Rattray, Dr Michael Simpson, and the Goldsmiths Literature Seminar (GLITS), for a highly valued testing ground; the organisers of the 2007 Real Things conference, the International Society for the Study of Narrative, and the Centre for Studies in Literature at the University of Portsmouth for inviting me to present my work; Dr Ben Parsons and Dr Chris Louttit, editors current and former of Peer English: The Journal for New Critical Thinking; Dr Eva Aldea and Dr Geoff Baker, for the forthcoming anthology; the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Goldsmiths College, University of London, for providing funding, as well as gainful employment; Kevin O'Neill and Catherine Humble, for fruitful discussions; my parents, Aaslaug and Jens Bull, for their continued support; and finally, my wife, Sara Clarke, whose love, understanding, and patience are a constant source of amazement to me. I dedicate this thesis to her. 7 Introduction In an introductory essay, Richard Ford writes of the standing Richard Yates‟ debut novel enjoys among fellow writers: We marvel at its consummate writerliness, its almost simple durability as a purely made thing of words that defeats all attempts at classification. Realism, naturalism, social satire – the standard critical bracketry – all go begging before this splendid book. Revolutionary