Corpus: Fictional ‘Exposures’
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Corpus: fictional ‘exposures’ Shannon Burns Discipline of English School of Humanities January, 2011 2 Contents Abstract ……………………………………………………….. 3 Declaration ……………………………………………………….. 5 Acknowledgments………………………………………………….. 6 Corpus ……………………………………………………….. 7 3 Abstract Corpus is a postmodernist Künstlerroman, with multiple and repetitious narrative streams that have, at their source, a series of ‗secrets‘ which may or may not be read as versions/doubles of an ‗originating‘ exposure. Corpus engages in and invokes autobiography and the act of appropriating or being appropriated by others‘ stories. It simultaneously employs notions of ‗origin‘ and ‗self‘ at the same time as rejecting their significance. Its focus is a kind of 'inner life'. Corpus is very much a hybrid or collage of forms: novel/memoir/short story/notes/fragments, which ultimately collapse into each other. It keeps a distance (ironic, comedic, idiotic) throughout, but there are also emotional ‗pay-offs‘. Its structure has several notable characteristics: parts of ―The Body‖—the second section—are designed as doubles or versions of the same story, with differing points of thematic emphasis. ―The Body‖ is additionally comprised of ‗inner‘ and ‗outer‘ narratives, where ‗Shaun‘ is constructed and deconstructed by multiple narrators. The first and third sections of Corpus, entitled ―Creature‖ and ―Touching‖, mirror the inner/outer structure of ―The Body‖, but ―Touching‖ is additionally comprised-of or interrupted-by a series of narrative streams and fragments. Different fonts in ―Touching‖ allow readers to easily follow a particular narrative stream as far as they like before ‗doubling‘ back and focussing on the others. This is designed to give the reader a sense that everything is happening, and continues to happen, at the same time. As with the repetitions in ―The Body‖, the partial intention is to give the reader a feeling of being trapped inside a narrative loop, like someone suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but the modifications inherent to these types of repetition simultaneously invoke (without actually producing) the prospect of transcendence—a way out of the nightmare of the self and its stories. The inclusion of a prop—the flint spark lighter—concretises what is perhaps the most significant narrative stream of ―Touching‖ and Corpus as a whole (the revelatory sister/father story). If readers burn the book they become ‗doubled‘ themselves: by raising the lighter to the page the reader is implicated in both the creation of the text and its (apparent) originating ‗exposure‘, as well as its/Shaun‘s apparent desire to be purged of itself/himself. As well as addressing many of concepts and conceits offered above, the exegesis is concerned with the ethics and aesthetic usage of ‗trauma‘, informed by the post- Holocaust sensibilities of various philosophers, but chiefly Theodor Adorno, and the 4 implications of Freud‘s universalising treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, paying particular attention to various forms of textual and authorial concealment, exposures and doubling that occur in Freud‘s Moses and Monotheism and linking them to those same features in Corpus (where remembering and forgetting, confinement and liberation, transcription and erasure, re-enactment and purgation occur in the simultaneous acts of writing, reading and burning). Like the creative work, the exegesis is comprised of a series of exposures, where the theoretical mask behind the fictional masquerade emerges in all its hideousness. 5 Declaration of Originality This work contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institute to Shannon Burns and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. I give consent to this copy of my thesis, when deposited in the University Library, being made available for loan and photocopying, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I also give permission for the digital version of my thesis to be made available on the web, via the University‘s digital research repository, the Library catalogue, the Australian Digital Theses Program (ADTP) and also through web search engines, unless permission has been granted by the University to restrict access for a period of time. Shannon Burns May, 2011 6 Acknowledgments Impossible thanks are due to my supervisors, Professors Brian Castro and Dorothy Driver, both of whom provided invaluable feedback and unstinting support. I‘d also like to express my gratitude to Bernadette Smith, Dr. Phillip Edmonds, Dr. Stephanie Hester, and Dr. Stephen Lawrence, all of whom were kind enough to read the very early drafts of various sections of this thesis, as well as Dr. Heather Kerr and Professor Nicholas Jose for their early interest and suggestions. Thanks to everyone in Napier 602 during the period of my candidature, particularly Dr. Guy Carney, Dr. Katherine Doube, Emma Carmody, Vaisnavi Das and Emily Cock. On the home front, Bree, Neane and Rick have been stupendous, as always, and my son, Joseph, is a constant inspiration. 7 Corpus: fictional ‘exposures’ I seem to speak, it is not I, about me, it is not about me. – Samuel Beckett, The Unnameable 8 Parts Exposed Hands…………………………………………….10 Heart…………………………………………….31 Eyes……………………………………………...36 Lips………………………………………………40 Penis……………………………………………...46 Breast…………………………………………….52 Tongue…………………………………………...62 Throat………………………………………….....67 Stomach.……………………………………….....81 Nipples…………………………………………...96 Vagina……………………………………………119 Appendix ‘The Egg‘…………………………………………180 Note: This book is best read in a darkened room, its pages illuminated by the fire of a flint spark lighter. But since this is likely to prove impractical, the reader could just imagine that they‘re reading the book this way. 9 Black Bird, by Shaun – January 1997 My blood-milk-eyed mother has come to her sodden nesting place. Behind her, twelve ‗apostles‘ call softly to each other. Her eyes – silk-needled pupils with a honey-glaze, swollen rubies opening into a platter of tints, brightening embers in dark soil – pick through the leaf litter of my thin-tissued bones. Her sharp black beak nest-robs as the trailing spectres, white-winged, encircle us with slow, deep-flapping glides – warning her off. The great patches in their feathers and fulminous, ash-eyed wings call her away. 10 Book I: Creature [Hands] He tells his story every five minutes, saying it is not his, there's cleverness for you. He would like it to be my fault that he has no story, of course he has no story, that's no reason for trying to foist one on me. – Samuel Beckett, Texts for Nothing 4. 11 She dips your hands in a black ointment. Or perhaps it is ink. As she tends to you I sit quietly at my desk, going over these pages. But I cannot concentrate for long. While she ministers to you, she hums. It is a gentle, pained sound, and from your mouth I hear, as if in reply, an echo of that noise, which has somehow, in the changeover from her mouth to yours, become a moan. I cannot help but close my eyes and drift into a delicate sleep. She has you now. I have awoken to gurgles of delight. Your gaze fixed on her pallid cheeks. Her blue eyes. Her blonde hair pinned back. Her small breasts heaving as she breathes. Her warmth. She has you now: transfixed. I watch as she gives the signal for you to raise yourself onto the bed. My bed. I see the delight in your eyes as she calls to you. Her lips on your cheek. As she peels the blankets back. As she pulls it tightly over your chest so that, as you sleep, you’ll feel comforted by her long embrace. So that your hands will be tucked away. She has you now. 12 I am not altogether sure what I am. A great many people go about wringing their hands wondering who they are. It is the fashion of our times. I am not like them. It follows that I am somewhat out of fashion, being, as I certainly am, before my time, in that I have no idea what I might be, which is surely a more desperate plight. And what can be counted on more than the progression ever further toward utter desperation? A stupid thing to ponder: t o query the nature of one‘s own matter, and the matter of its form, no, surely one should scorn such gestures. After all, who is to say I am anything? I would not assert, as some do, that I am because I think, or any variation thereof. One might as well say, as far as I‘m concerned, I am that I am, which is to say one is what one is, and one is what one is because of what one is, namely: myself. What confusion! Useless mutterings prolonged to infinity. But there are other possibilities. For instance, that I am an animal, or, if you prefer, a beast. A sort of bird, or dog, or monkey. That would be something of a blow. I confess to higher aims. Yet there is a little to be said for not being, for example, a vegetable. Or mineral. Although, at other times I have hoped – or at least pretended to hope – to be so. Certainly not a vegetable, that would be unendurable. But to be a mineral, well, at least it would be something. And to be part of a rock would be even better. Just a small part, a tiny silicate, let‘s say. Yes, I can imagine myself there at least. A portion of rock. But definitely not growing, I would refuse to do such a thing, as a vegetable does, interminably growing, I would rather keep still awhile. This, as far as I can tell, is the sole origin of my preference to be part of a rock over being part of a stone: stones are always being moved about.