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Realism, Multivocality, and the Margins Of EXTRAORDINARY OBJECTS, EXCEPTIONAL SUBJECTS: MAGIC(AL) REALISM, MULTIVOCALITY, AND THE MARGINS OF EXPERIENCE IN THE WORKS OF TOM ROBBINS A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English in the University of Canterbury Sionainn Emily Byrnes University of Canterbury New Zealand 2015 Table of Contents i TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ ii Abstract ................................................................................................................................. iii Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter One: Alternative Realities and the Extraordinary Object .................................. 6 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 6 The Emergence of the Magic(al) Realist Genre .................................................................. 7 Postmodernism and Identity Politics ................................................................................. 13 Still Life with Woodpecker ................................................................................................. 18 Discursive Objects ............................................................................................................. 21 Object-Oriented Ontology ................................................................................................. 24 Skinny Legs and All ............................................................................................................ 34 It-Narratives and Object Tales ........................................................................................... 36 Art and Sympathy ............................................................................................................... 37 B is for Beer ....................................................................................................................... 46 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 52 Chapter Two: Authorship, (Women’s) Agency, and Appropriation .............................. 54 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 54 Feminism ........................................................................................................................... 56 Ecofeminism ...................................................................................................................... 61 Grand Narratives ................................................................................................................ 63 Even Cowgirls Get the Blues ............................................................................................. 66 The Feminine Body ............................................................................................................ 67 Reinterpreting Metanarratives ........................................................................................... 73 Dr Robbins ......................................................................................................................... 79 Another Roadside Attraction .............................................................................................. 81 Marx Marvelous ................................................................................................................. 83 Goddesses .......................................................................................................................... 86 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 90 Chapter Three: Cosmological Compatibilities and Consciousness ................................. 92 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 92 The American Counterculture Movement of the 1960s and 70s ....................................... 94 Jitterbug Perfume ............................................................................................................... 99 The New Physics .............................................................................................................. 107 Reconciling Science and Spirituality ............................................................................... 111 Postmodern Indeterminacy .............................................................................................. 114 Rethinking the Novel ....................................................................................................... 120 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 123 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 125 Notes .................................................................................................................................... 131 Works Cited ........................................................................................................................ 140 Acknowledgements ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis constitutes much more than an academic pursuit. Indeed, it represents the most challenging emotional journey I have endured to date (perhaps I am lucky in this regard). That being said, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to Associate Professor Philip Armstrong and Dr Daniel Bedggood. I cannot thank you both enough for your expert guidance and unbelievable patience during this project. To my partner Ronan, were it not for your encouragement, humour, and always-timely pots of tea, I may well have found myself writing from within a very different institution. To my family – Siobhan, Greg, Brian, Daniel, and Amelia – I could not have completed this thesis, let alone survived the last two years, without your love and support (the occasional financial bailout certainly helped as well). Finally, a very special thanks to Tom Robbins: your novels have provided me with those quiet moments of wonder that make thesis-writing worthwhile. ! Abstract iii ABSTRACT Through a critical examination of the works of Tom Robbins, this thesis interrogates the historical evolution and appropriation of the magic(al) realist tradition. In so doing, it situates Robbins’ writing within the framework of postmodernism, and explores the ontological implications inherent in Robbins’ use of magic(al) realist concepts and conventions. With a specific emphasis on the notion of cultural consciousness, this thesis analyzes the object- oriented cosmologies embodied and espoused in three of Robbins’ novels: Still Life with Woodpecker (1980), Skinny Legs and All (1990), and B is for Beer (2009). It unpacks the ideological figuration of various textual devices evident in Another Roadside Attraction (1971) and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976) – particularly the gendered use of unreliable narrators – and, with reference to Jitterbug Perfume (1984), relates Robbins’ appropriation of the magic(al) realist tradition to the American counterculture movement of the 1960s and 70s. Employing poststructuralist, feminist, ecofeminist, and postcolonial discourses, this thesis ultimately seeks to position Robbins’ writing within the context of a radical emancipatory politics that views (and uses) literature as an ideological space in which to challenge, reinterpret, and democratize Western metanarratives. Keywords: Tom Robbins, magic(al) realism, postmodernism, poststructuralism, feminism, ecofeminism, postcolonialism, object-oriented ontology, it-narrative, Russian formalism, counterculture, The New Physics, Eastern mysticism, consciousness. ! Introduction 1 INTRODUCTION [Y]ou should never hesitate to trade your cow for a handful of magic beans. -- Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (234). In his recent autobiography, aptly entitled Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginary Life (2014), Tom Robbins insists that his greatest gift, in life and in literature, is his “ability to live simultaneously in the rational world and the world of imagination” (361- 362). This self-proclaimed capacity to exist at the interface of real and unreal landscapes, and to transition seamlessly between them, itself indicative of a broader literary fascination with unstable, contingent, or liminal sites, certainly makes for an unusual, at times even unsettling, reading experience. Whether it is the epic journey by which the mythic goat-god Pan arrives at a modern-day Mardi Gras parade in Jitterbug Perfume (1984), or the reappearance of the mummified corpse of Christ at a roadside hotdog stand in Another Roadside Attraction (1971), Robbins’ novels, which do not so much reinvent as recast reality, continue to challenge readers’ perceptions of real and unreal long after the pages have closed. Given the extent to which he “mix[es], intermingle[s] – even fuse[s] – ... [in his] novels the tragic with the comic, the ugly with the beautiful, the romantic with the gritty, fantasy with reality, mythos with logos, the sensible with the goofy, [and] the sacred with the profane” (Robbins, Tibetan Peach Pie 67), one can
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