Recursion, Cognitive Blending, and the Problem of Interpretation in Twenty-First-Century Fiction
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University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2010 Ambiguous Recognition: Recursion, Cognitive Blending, and the Problem of Interpretation in Twenty-First-Century Fiction Christopher David Kilgore University of Tennessee, Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the American Literature Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, and the Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons Recommended Citation Kilgore, Christopher David, "Ambiguous Recognition: Recursion, Cognitive Blending, and the Problem of Interpretation in Twenty-First-Century Fiction. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2010. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/891 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Christopher David Kilgore entitled "Ambiguous Recognition: Recursion, Cognitive Blending, and the Problem of Interpretation in Twenty-First-Century Fiction." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. Amy J. Elias, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Allen R. Dunn, Thomas W. Haddox, Stephen Blackwell Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Christopher David Kilgore entitled “Ambiguous Recognition: Recursion, Cognitive Blending, and the Problem of Interpretation in Twenty-First-Century Fiction.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. Amy J. Elias Major Professor We have read this dissertation or thesis and recommend its acceptance: Allen R. Dunn Thomas F. Haddox Stephen Blackwell Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) Ambiguous Recognition: Recursion, Cognitive Blending, and the Problem of Interpretation in Twenty-First-Century Fiction A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Christopher David Kilgore December 2010 ii Copyright © 2010 by Christopher David Kilgore All rights reserved. iii This dissertation is dedicated to my wife, Courtney. iv Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful to Dr. Amy J. Elias, advisor, chair of the committee, and friend. Her support, sage advice, patience, and keen editing eye have made this study rewarding and enjoyable. I have had the honor of working with her throughout my time here at Knoxville, and her courses and Research Assistantships provided valuable support and professional development. Most of all her kindred scholarly spirit has kept me dedicated to my work here. I would also like to thank the other members of my committee, Dr. Allen R. Dunn, Dr. Thomas F. Haddox, and Dr. Stephen Blackwell, for their tireless reading and insightful advice. In addition, Dr. Dunn’s courses and leadership in the department’s Critical Theory Reading Group have been an inspiration throughout my doctoral education. Many other members of the English Department have also made vital contributions to this project. Dr. La Vinia Jennings has my gratitude for her course on African cosmology and the novels of Toni Morrison, which vastly improved Chapter Four. Dr. Charles Maland has always provided encouragement and support, as well as an aura of reassuring calm. My fellow students—Misty Krueger, Joel Brooks, Laura Koons, and too many more to name—have also inspired and kept me sane. And of course, I owe much to the department’s staff, particularly our graduate secretary Leanne Hinkle, whose untiring work has been a safety net I could not have done without. Many members of the International Society for the Study of Narrative have also been most helpful, particularly in their feedback on a conference paper derived from Chapter Two. I would also thank two publishers and an author for their kind permission to reprint some useful copyrighted material: HarperCollins for page 437 of Half Life (copyright 2006 by Shelley v Jackson), Random House for page S9/H352 of Only Revolutions (copyright 2006 by Mark Z. Danielewski), and Marjorie Luesebrink for the materials from Califia (copyright 2001). I owe a whole different dimension of gratitude to my wonderful family. My parents have always known how to encourage and renew my spirit and enthusiasm; their love and support, and that of many others in my extended family, has seen me through the difficult times. My wife Courtney has seen this particular project mature from sketched questions and vast reading lists. These pages, like our life together, are saturated with her patience, stimulating intellectual companionship, and love. vi Abstract This dissertation uses theories of cognitive conceptual integration (as outlined by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner) to propose a model of narrative reading that mediates between narratology and theories of reception. I use this model to demonstrate how new experimental narratives achieve a potent balance between a determinate and open story-form. Where the high postmodernists of the 1970s and 80s created ironic, undecidable story-worlds, the novels considered here allow readers to embrace seemingly opposite propositions without retreating into ironic suspension, trading the postmodernist “neither/nor” for a new “both/and.” This technique demands significant revision of both descriptions of radical experimentation in twenty-first- century novels, and of earlier narratological accounts of the distinction between story and discourse. Each novel considered in this dissertation encourages its reader to recognize combined concepts in the course of the reading process. Shelley Jackson’s Half Life combines singular and plural identity, reimagining individualist subjectivity and the literary treatment of (dis)ability. Mark Z. Danielewski’s Only Revolutions combines objective and subjective temporality, offering a new perspective on American myth-making in the popular post-Kerouac road-novel tradition. Percival Everett’s Erasure combines reliable and unreliable narration to create a complex critique of the idea of an African American novel tradition. M.D. Coverley’s hypertext novel Califia involves the reader in all three of these discursive dimensions at once, updating the marginalized art of hypertext fiction by inviting the reader to see his or her role in navigating the text as both creative and determined—the epitome of open-and-closed form. My analysis demonstrates how cognitive blending is a precise method for describing how vii a reader interprets complex narrative structures. I propose this blending-model as a new approach to contemporary experimental fiction from the perspective of the reader’s cognitive work, and show how it offers new readings of important contemporary fiction. I argue that twenty-first-century authors attempt simultaneously to construct “open” forms, and to address real socio-cultural concerns in the world; I also argue that a narratology founded on theories of cognitive processes is best-equipped to describe the operations of reading and understanding these complex narrative forms. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface............................................................................................................................................. 1 I. Discourse, Story, and Cognitive Blending in Pale Fire .............................................................. 7 From Structuralism to Phenomenology .................................................................................... 10 The Cognitive Approach........................................................................................................... 21 Cognitive Blending and Narrative ............................................................................................ 29 Story-Level Blending in Pale Fire: The Case of the Single-Author Solutions........................ 37 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 75 II. We Are “I”: The Singular and Plural Self in Half Life ........................................................... 78 Direct-Story Blend: “Nora (Not) Alone”.................................................................................. 87 Combined-Story Blend: “Not Exactly Nora” ......................................................................... 101 Second-Order Combined-Story Blend: “Trauma and Recovery”.......................................... 116 Conclusions............................................................................................................................. 128 III. “Allways our rush returning renewed”: Temporal