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Amid Where 2011.Pdf (1.020Mb) WHERE ART MEETS LIFE IN SECRET: EXCAVATING SUBJECTS IN SELECTED WORKS OF MICHAEL ONDAATJE By David Jonathan Amid Thesis presented in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (MA) at Stellenbosch University Supervisor: Dr Daniel Roux March 2011 1 Declaration I, the undersigned, hereby declare that the work contained in this thesis consist of my own original work, and that I have not previously in its entirety, or in part, submitted it at any university for a degree. ………………………………………. ………………………………………. Signature: D. J. Amid Date 2 Abstract In re-imagining the relationship between words and life, or alternately between self and world, the novelist is in a unique position not merely to reproduce these interlinked relationships through the practice of writing, but to use the unique possibilities extended by the form and content of the novel as literary genre to reveal this interpenetration of ontological and epistemological domains; to render visible what is normally regarded as separate. To disclose how the imaginative domain of fiction writing mirrors the novelistic character of material reality, this dissertation discusses three Michael Ondaatje works, The English Patient, Anil’s Ghost and Divisadero. Through a careful close reading it explores the manner in which Ondaatje‘s form of philosophical thought juxtaposes many genres and expressive forms into a highly complex, playful and self-referential metafictional whole. With a focus on close reading supplemented rather than determined by critical theory, this dissertation then sets out to demonstrate how the author‘s work advances the provocative central thesis that fictional texts not only reflect upon events, thoughts and emotions, but that philosophical works of literature and art are necessarily performative and interrogative, able to question aspects of the self, and ultimately able to present ethical ways of being and therapeutic escape to readers. 3 Opsomming Deur die voorstelling van die verhouding tussen woorde en die lewe, of alternatiewelik tussen self en wêreld, is die outeur uniek geposisioneer om nie net hierdie verwikkelde verhoudings deur die skryfproses weer te gee nie, maar ook om die unieke moontlikhede wat die roman as literêre genre bied, te ontgin. Eenvoudig gestel, die vorm en inhoud van die roman maak dit moontlik om hierdie wisselwerking van ontologiese en epistomologiese gebiede oop te vlek, om wat gewoonlik as afsonderlik beskou word, te beklemtoon en op die voorgrond te plaas. Om dan ten toon te stel hoe die verbeeldingryke gebied van fiksieskryfwerk die roman- karakter van die materiële werklikheid weërspieel, fokus hierdie studie op ‘n bespreking van drie werke van Michael Ondaatje, naamlik The English Patient, Anil’s Ghost en Divisadero. Deur kritiese stiplees ondersoek hierdie verhandeling die wyse waarop Ondaatje se konkretisering van abstrakte en filosofiese idees teenoor verskeie ander genres en beeldende denkvorme geplaas word, en sodoende ‘n self-verwysende, uiters komplekse metafiktiewe geheel skep. Hierdie studie fokus op stiplees van die tekste, maar word ook aangevul deur literêre en filosofiese teorie. Uiteindelik poog hierdie studie om uit te beeld hoe die outeur se werk die uitdagende argument dat fiksie nie net gebeurtenisse, denke en emosies bepeins nie, maar dat filosofiese en literêre tekste en kunsvorme noodwendig dramatiserend en ondersoekend is. Tekste soos dié van Ondaatje beskik dan oor die vermoëns om eienskappe van die self te bevraagteken, en om eindelik etiese vorme van menswees en terapeutiese ontvlugting aan lesers te bied. 4 Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere and deep gratitude to the following people: - The Bursary Office of the University of Stellenbosch, Professor Dirk Klopper, and the National Research Foundation, for financial support particularly over the past two years. - My supervisor, Dr Daniel Roux, for consistent enthusiasm, patience and encouragement, a commitment to academic excellence and intellectual stimulation, and for a brilliant sense of humour, warmth and understanding. - To those great minds that have directly played a role in inspiring or ably assisting me on my academic path: First and foremost Dr Mathilda Slabbert, Elke Rosochacki, Dr Shaun Viljoen, Dr Ralph Goodman, Prof Meg Samuelson, and Prof Rita Barnard. A special thanks to Prof Annie Gagiano, whose third-year elective ―War and Civil Life‖ afforded me the opportunity to witness teaching at its most intimate and inspiring. Thank you for introducing me to Ondaatje, and for instilling in me a love of close reading. - Elsa Winckler, Colette Knoetze, Riaan Oppelt for all the effort in making my life as a tutor so much easier during the past two years. - My fellow students and close friends Emil Bischoff, Jan-Hendrik Swanepoel, Emile Geldenhuys, Karin Samuel and Janka Steenkamp, for equal measures of ridiculous fun, moral support and good spirit, endless laughter and fantastic camaraderie. - Michelle Bexiga, I will forever be thankful for the contribution you have made to my development as a person, and for your support in every part of this journey. - My mom Cathy, my biggest fan, for all the love and wisdom shared with me every day. You inspire me to keep working. 5 CONTENTS Introduction “Where Art meets Life in Secret”: Border-crossings, Narrative Craft and the Language of the Novel……………………………..7 Chapter 1 “An Apocryphal Story” – (Re)construction, Reading and Relation in The English Patient……………………………………………..22 Chapter 2 “Coming Through Trauma” – Violence, (Dis)location and Intimacy in Anil’s Ghost…………………………………………...61 Chapter 3 “A Folded Map of the Heart” – (Auto)biography, Memory and Story in Divisadero…………………………………………………91 Conclusion “Communal Histories and Communal Books”……………........129 Select Bibliography………………………………………………………136 6 Introduction “Where Art meets Life in Secret”: Border-Crossings, Narrative Craft and the Language of the Novel For, let us not fool ourselves; the world is written first — the holy books say it was created in words, and all that happens in it, happens in language first. — Dzevad Karahasan But there was a discipline, it was just that we didn't understand. We thought he was formless, but I think now he was tormented by order, what was outside it… — Michael Ondaatje, Coming Through Slaughter In The Transformation of Postcolonial Identity from Commonwealth through Postcolonial Literature: The Cases of Nadine Gordimer, Michael Ondaatje and David Malouf (2006), Lamia Tayeb asserts that ―[t]he skilful orchestration of texts and contexts, forms and ideas, words and worlds remain a major source of tension and challenge in contemporary literary production,‖ and that ―[w]hat is needed are novels that aspire to the greatness of art and its relevance to life‖ (103-4). Tayeb also notes ―the tension [in Michael Ondaatje‘s work] between the personal and the political,‖ ―played out on the borders of the category of fictionality itself‖ (96). Closely correlated to such a ―need‖ for novels that reflect ―the greatness of art‖ and ―its relevance to life,‖ Karahasan‘s provocative assertion that ―the world is written first‖ and ―created in words‖ foregrounds the role of the writer as someone who works ―on the border of the category of fictionality itself‖ to make sense of the world. By highlighting the ―construction‖ of the world and by drawing our attention to the ―language‖ of the novel, meeting both the technical needs of narrative while delivering imaginative commentary on the outside world, Karahasan‘s words help us to consider the links between written words and a ―written world‖; between a view of books as ―holy‖ or sacred and the authorial bodies that give them life. Karahasan‘s comment is moreover a useful elucidation of Sri-Lankan born Canadian author and poet Michael Ondaatje‘s work, representing a view of the world as ―written,‖ constructed through language yet personified through various intimate relationships. A prolific poet with a more measured output of fictional novels, Ondaatje in my view is a superb, subtle writer with an unrivalled ability to comment on real world issues and concerns while continuously bringing the importance of the literary to the fore. I am struck consistently by Ondaatje‘s graceful turn of phrase and terrific sense of humour, his willingness to engage with difficult subject matter (war, trauma, 7 dislocation, memory, life-writing), and juxtaposition of various points of view, fragmented, a- chronological storytelling, and the arresting intermixing of genres. It is apparent that critics too have for years paid attention to these admittedly important features of his work. Various monographs such as Michael Ondaatje: Express Yourself Beautifully by Ed Jewinski (1994), Ragas of Longing: The Poetry of Michael Ondaatje by Sam Solecki (2003), Annick Hillger‘s Not Needing All the Words: Michael Ondaatje’s Literature of Silence (2006), Joan Elizabeth Von Memerty‘s Michael Ondaatje: Distance, Clarity and Ghosts (2009), and, most recently, Michael Ondaatje by Lee Spinks, have examined the writer‘s work under broad categories that we can classify as Romantic, Neo- Modernist, Postmodern or Postcolonial, while many critics and their scholarly articles have chosen to focus on specific elements that make up Ondaatje‘s eclectic narrative craft. In the article ―The Chronotopes of Mongrel Literatures: Rushdie, Ondaatje, Naipaul, and the Problems of Postcoloniality,‖ Anthony R. Guneratne contends that ―a preoccupation with the fragility of human lives and the bodies
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