A Study of the Significance of the Australian Historical Novel in the Period of the History Wars, 1988 — Present
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School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts A Study of the Significance of the Australian Historical Novel in the Period of the History Wars, 1988 — present Joanne Jones This thesis is presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Curtin University February 2012 Declaration To the best of my knowledge and belief this thesis contains no material previously published by any other person except where due acknowledgment has been made. This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. Signature: …………………………………………. Date: ………………………... I Abstract Australian historical novels and the History Wars (1998-2008) The period of recent Australian cultural history known as the History Wars was of unprecedented significance in reshaping the relationship between the nation and its colonial past. While much of this cultural “backtracking” (Collins and Davis) was due to the groundbreaking and politically efficacious work of revisionist historians, an assessment of the role played by historical fiction during this time of unsettling and “hidden” histories is due. This thesis takes the publically-waged debate over the suitability of novelists to render authoritative versions of significant events or periods as its starting point. From there, however, it delves deeper into the politics of form, analysing the connection between the realist modes of traditional, empiricist histories and the various explorations of the colonial past that have been figured through different historical novels. The forms of these novels range from classic realism to frontier Gothic, various Romanticisms, magical realism, and reflexive post-modernism. In particular, I investigate the relationship between politics and form in Rodney Hall’s Captivity Captive (1988), David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon (1993), Kim Scott’s Benang (1999), Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish (2003), and Kate Grenville’s The Secret River (2005) and The Lieutenant (2008). The relative formal freedoms offered through historical novels offer the chance to confront the past in all of its contradiction and complexity. The terrain of the postmodern and historical sublime — of loss and uncertainly — is one in which historical fiction can perform an important political and ethical role. The immeasurably vast space which lies beyond history, that space of those who are often unrepresented, often victims, often silent, is an abyss into which fiction, particularly historical fiction, is able imaginatively and ethically to descend. II Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge the inspiring culture and resilience of the Noongar people of South Western Australia, and of other Indigenous peoples across the continent. Completing this thesis has reminded of my good fortune. I must thank my supervisor, Tim Dolin, whose intellectual brilliance and exceptional knowledge of so many diverse areas of scholarship have guided this project. He has been unerring in his professional and personal support. It is a fortunate event when student and teacher can combine rigorous supervision and heartfelt friendship. My dear friend, Susan Midalia, has also been unstinting in her encouragement of my work and an invaluable proof-reader. She has nurtured my development as a writer and intellectual from before I embarked the PhD, when we were both secondary English teachers, for which I am deeply grateful. I will never forget the good fortune I had in meeting her. I am fortunate in the many people who have taken the time to assist in this project over the years, from delivering incisive and informed opinions on drafts, inspiring and invigorating conversation, to continuing personal encouragement and support, to caring for my infant son while I worked. These people include: Maria and Vince Pantalone, Lucy Dougan, Dan Midalia, Georgie Arnott, Nathan Hollier and Paul Genoni. These people will always have my thanks and friendship. Not all experiences of close family reflect the deepest level of devotion. I am fortunate that my experiences do. My sister, Claire, has been my companion, colleague, intellectual sparring partner and friend for thirty five years. My parents are the best and most generous of people, giving everything to ensure that we had opportunities that many do not. Their intelligence and dedication to the things that matter are a major influence on this work. III It was always my great fortune to find my husband, Matteo, who is the embodiment of honest integrity and gentleness. I also thank him for his assistance in so many things — intellectual, personal and practical. The perfect reminder of our good fortune is our son, Luca. Dedication To my grandparents, And my son, Luca. IV The following publications originated from sections of this thesis: “Dancing the Old Enlightenment: Gould’s Book of Fish, the Historical Novel and the Postmodern Sublime”. Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (Special Issue 2008):16. “Ambivalence, absence and loss in David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon.”Australian Literary Studies 24.2 (2009): 14. “History and the Novel: Refusing to Be Silent.” Westerley 55.2 (2011): 16. Print. 1 Table of Contents Abstract I Acknowledgements and Dedication II Acknowledgement of publications from thesis IV Introduction 3 Telling histories Chapter One 38 Kate Grenville’s colonial novels: an ethics of expansion and return I. From Wiseman to Thornhill: The historical novel and the search for ethics and history 42 II. The history-fiction debate: What is literature for? 63 Chapter Two 83 Ambivalence, absence and loss in David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon Chapter Three 103 The heart-land: History, possibility and the Romantic poetic in Kim Scott’s Benang Chapter Four 132 “Dancing the Old Enlightenment”: Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish, the historical novel and the postmodern sublime Chapter Five 154 Rodney Hall’s Captivity Captive and narrating the gothic: Beneath modernity I. Laplanche’s ethical “alien”: Psychoanalytic theory and the materiality of the Australian colonial frontier 164 II. Historicising Bataille: Politicising thanos 181 Coda: 1988-2010 I. Refusing to be silent 201 II. To the future: Mirrors and mourning 208 Works Cited 212 2 ...What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time? If thou remember’st aught ere thou camest here, How thou camest here thou mayst. Prospero to Miranda, The Tempest, Act I, Scene 2 3 Introduction Telling histories This thesis investigates the cultural and political significance of the Australian historical novels written during the period known as the History Wars, in which historians, politicians, writers and commentators entered into an aggressive, at times acrimonious, debate about the nature of Australia’s colonial past. This occurred, in an Australian context, from the late 1980s (the earliest novel in this study coincides with Australia’s bicentenary year, 1988), and reached its dramatic heights in the early 2000s. The novels investigated in detail are, in order of publication, Rodney Hall’s Captivity Captive (1988), David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon (1993), Kim Scott’s Benang (1999), Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish (2001), and Kate Grenville’s The Secret River (2005) and The Lieutenant (2008). More specifically, this thesis is an investigation of the politics of form in contemporary Australian historical fiction, and considers the ways in which, and the degrees to which, particular narrative forms can function as effective critiques of Australia’s colonial past. While it proceeds on the assumption that there is no easy correspondence between a form and an ideology — that content must always be taken into account when considering the political position of a text — it nevertheless argues that in fictional treatments of a past that has been contested, effaced, celebrated or forgotten, the question of narrative form is one of deep political significance. Is any “realistic” narrative about the period philosophically and ideologically limited? Are there more formally self-conscious, non-realist modes that are more ethical and/or politically efficacious in their representation of the injustices of Australia’s colonial history? The thesis also proceeds on the assumption that any consideration of the political efficacy of the contemporary Australian historical novel must take into account its historical and cultural/aesthetic contexts, both contemporaneous and 4 past, in which perceptions of the genre have been influenced by shifts in thinking about nation, race and the discipline of history itself. The Australian History Wars: What is at stake? The 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of a number of significant historically revisionist studies of Australia’s colonial past. These studies undertook the task of exposing incidents of violence towards Indigenous groups and the systematic government programs of annihilation, forced relocation, family separations and cultural erasure. In the two decades since Henry Reynolds and other historians questioned the reasons behind the secrecy attached to aspects of our history (qtd in Frontier; Whispering), and provided tangible evidence of what anthropologist W.H. Stanner in 1968 called “the secret river of blood” and the “locked cabinet” of Australian history, versions of the national past have become a matter of fierce contention. The revelation of widespread physical, psychological and sexual abuse, both open and clandestine, troubled the collective consciousness of a country which, perceiving itself as an exemplary