THE BODY OF WRITING The Body of Writing AN EROTICS OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN FICTION Flore Chevaillier THE OHIO StatE UNIVERSITY PRESS COLUMBUS Copyright © 2013 by The Ohio State University. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chevaillier, Flore, 1979– The body of writing : an erotics of contemporary American fiction / Flore Chevaillier. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8142-1217-2 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8142-1217-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8142-9318-8 (cd) 1. Semiotics and literature. 2. American fiction—History and criticism—Theory, etc. 3. English language—Style. 4. Reading. I. Title. PN98.S46C48 2013 813'.609—dc23 2012041520 Cover design by Laurence J. Nozik Type set in Adobe Sabon Text design by Juliet Williams Printed by Thomson-Shore, Inc. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ZNSI Z39.48–1992. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments ix INTRODUCtiON 1 CHAPTER ONE Erotic Etudes: Theory of the Self and Language 9 CHAPTER TWO Semiotics and Erotics in Joseph McElroy’s Plus 31 CHAPTER THREE “A Certain Pulsing”: The Erotic Page in Carole Maso’s AVA 55 CHAPTER FOUR Erotics and Corporeality in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s DICTEE 79 CHAPTER FIVE Bodily and Literary Modifications in Steve Tomasula’s VAS: An Opera in Flatland 100 CONCLUSION 133 Works Cited 141 Index 151 illustrations FIGURE 1. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. DICTEE p. 151 (c) 2001 The Regents of the University of California. The University of California Press. 15 FIGURE 2. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. DICTEE p. 3 (c) 2001 The Regents of the University of California. The University of California Press. 17 FIGURE 3. Carole Maso. AVA p. 149 (c) 1993 Dalkey Archive Press. 19 FIGURE 4. Steve Tomasula. VAS: An Opera in Flatland p. 352 (c) 2004 Steve Tomasula. The University of Chicago Press. 27 FIGURE 5. Steve Tomasula. VAS: An Opera in Flatland p. 257 (c) 2004 Steve Tomasula. The University of Chicago Press. 29 FIGURE 6. Carole Maso. AVA p. 8 (c) 1993 Dalkey Archive Press. 55 FIGURE 7. Carole Maso. AVA p. 65 (c) 1993 Dalkey Archive Press. 60 FIGURE 8. Carole Maso. AVA p. 44 (c) 1993 Dalkey Archive Press. 60 FIGURE 9. Carole Maso. AVA p. 251 (c) 1993 Dalkey Archive Press. 66 FIGURE 10. Carole Maso. AVA p. 85 (c) 1993 Dalkey Archive Press. 68 FIGURE 11. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. DICTEE pp. 40–41 (c) 2001 The Regents of the University of California. The University of California Press. 79 vii viii | Illustrations FIGURE 12. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. DICTEE p. 130 (c) 2001 The Regents of the University of California. The University of California Press. 85 FIGURE 13. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. DICTEE p. 133 (c) 2001 The Regents of the University of California. The University of California Press. 86 FIGURE 14. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. DICTEE p. 3 (c) 2001 The Regents of the University of California. The University of California Press. 87 FIGURE 15. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. DICTEE p. 118 (c) 2001 The Regents of the University of California. The University of California Press. 89 FIGURE 16. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. DICTEE p. 119 (c) 2001 The Regents of the University of California. The University of California Press. 91 FIGURE 17. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. DICTEE pp. 94–95 (c) 2001 The Regents of the University of California. The University of California Press. 94 FIGURE 18. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. DICTEE p. 64 (c) 2001 The Regents of the University of California. The University of California Press. 96 FIGURE 19. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. DICTEE p. 65 (c) 2001 The Regents of the University of California. The University of California Press. 97 FIGURE 20. Steve Tomasula. VAS: An Opera in Flatland Cover (c) 2004 Steve Tomasula. The University of Chicago Press. 100 FIGURE 21. Steve Tomasula. VAS: An Opera in Flatland p. 236 (c) 2004 Steve Tomasula. The University of Chicago Press. 111 FIGURE 22. Steve Tomasula. VAS: An Opera in Flatland p. 273 (c) 2004 Steve Tomasula. The University of Chicago Press. 114 FIGURE 23. Steve Tomasula. VAS: An Opera in Flatland p. 51 (c) 2004 Steve Tomasula. The University of Chicago Press. 115 FIGURE 24. Steve Tomasula. VAS: An Opera in Flatland p. 177 (c) 2004 Steve Tomasula. The University of Chicago Press. 122 FIGURE 25. Steve Tomasula. VAS: An Opera in Flatland pp. 254–55 (c) 2004 Steve Tomasula. The University of Chicago Press. 125 FIGURE 26. Steve Tomasula. VAS: An Opera in Flatland p. 50 (c) 2004 Steve Tomasula. The University of Chicago Press. 127 FIGURE 27. Steve Tomasula. VAS: An Opera in Flatland p. 21 (c) 2004 Steve Tomasula. The University of Chicago Press. 131 acknowledgments The body of this book has been shaped by the generous contributions of mentors, professors, colleagues, friends, and family. First, I am deeply grateful to R. M. Berry for his guidance on my dissertation, which was the foundation for this book. His insight, wisdom, and encouragement before, during, and after the completion of this project have been essential to my life as a writer and scholar. I also owe many thanks to Antoine Cazé, my co-director at the Université d’Orléans, who inspired me to study and write about adventurous works of literature. I am most grateful for his time, direc- tion, and support over the course of my undergraduate and graduate studies. Andrew Epstein, S. E. Gontarski, Lauren Weingarden, Christopher Shinn, Mathieu Duplay, François Happe, and Claire Maniez offered valuable feed- back in the early stages of this project. The Julia Burnett Bryant Memorial Award and research grants from Florida State University subsidized my research and allowed me to conduct interviews with Joseph McElroy, Carole Maso, and Steve Tomasula. I thank each of them for allowing me to use our conversations in this book. Many thanks to Carole Maso for eye-opening discussions and for her enthusiasm for my work. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Steve Tomasula for his profound generosity and continued support of this project, as well as for his invigorating correspondence and conversations. I also thank him for many references indispensable to the evolution of this project. Last, but certainly ix x | Acknowledgments not least, through the years, Joseph McElroy has had invaluable influence on my critical sensibilities; without him and his friendship, what follows would have been a lesser book. I am forever grateful for his stimulating conversa- tions, generous correspondence, and subtle insights at so many steps along the way. I am very appreciative of two anonymous readers’ perceptive comments on my manuscript; their astute responses and reading suggestions have sharpened the contours of my argument. I would also like to express my appreciation to Sandy Crooms, Eugene O’Connor, Juliet Williams, Kris- ten Ebert-Wagner, Larry Nozik, Malcolm Litchfield, and Laurie Avery at The Ohio State University Press for their guidance and support. Eugene O’Connor and Juliet Williams tended, literally, to the body of my writing and made sure that it looked its best. I am also thankful to Sandy Croom’s encouragement, patience, consideration, and expertise, which have made the process of publishing the book fulfilling at so many levels. I am grateful to the Taylor & Francis and Rodopi presses for permission to reincorporate here revised versions of Chapter Two initially published as “Semiotics and Erotics in Joseph McElroy’s Plus.” Critique. Studies in Con- temporary Fiction 50.3 (2009): 227–240, and Chapter Four initially pub- lished as “Erotics and Corporeality in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s DICTEE.” Transnational Resistance: Experience and Experiment in Contemporary Women’s Writing. Eds. Stephenie Young and Adele Parker. Rodopi Press, 2013. I also thank Dalkey Archive Press, the Berkeley Art Museum, and Steve Tomasula for allowing me to reproduce pages of AVA, DICTEE, and VAS. At various stages of this project, I relied on the help of friends and family, and I thank them for their support. I am especially grateful for the sugges- tions and encouragements of Rebecca Pennell, Joanna Beall, Matthew Hob- son, Nick Allin, Tatia Jacobson Jordan, Jayson Iwen, Amy Hobbs-Harris, Simten Gurac, and Pierre Delacolonge. Special thanks to Bruno and Arlette, my parents, and Maud and Luc, my siblings, with whom I share a fascina- tion with language. I thank each of them for countless contributions to the process of writing this book. Finally, the person who has been the most centrally involved in the evo- lution of this project is Fabien Corbillon, to whom I owe the greatest thanks. I could not have written this book without his support, encouragement, wit, and affection. His belief in my ideas and endeavors has been a constant source of strength and inspiration. Loving thanks to Noah, who joined us in the last stages of this project and shared me with the day-to-day labor of writing this book. It is impossible for me to do justice to the joys that he has brought in our lives. I dedicate this book to them. introduction The literary criticism of the past few decades has inclined toward an understanding of experimental literature in privative terms: inno- vative texts, in their linguistic experimentations, are perceived to negate social conventions. In this context, formally innovative writing is considered alternative, oppositional, defiant, subversive, transgressive, and resistant. Because authors such as William Gass, Raymond Federman, John Barth, Ronald Suckenik, Leslie Scalapino, Walter Abish, Ursula Le Guin, Robert Coover, Lydia Davis, Harry Mathews, Susan Sontag, and Clarence Major deconstruct literary traditions, they are understood to denounce and resist the ideological rules that shape literature and society.