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© Irmtraud Huber 2014 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978–1–137–42990–2 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

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Contents

Acknowledgements viii List of Abbreviations x

Introduction: Epitaph on a Ghost, or the Impossible End of Postmodernism 1

Part I Tracing Shifts 1 Post-post, Beyond and Back: Literature in the Wake of Postmodernism 21 2 Pragmatic Fantasies: From Subversion to Reconstruction 51

Part II Reconstructive Readings 3 Leaving the Postmodernist Labyrinth: Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves 79 4 The Quest for Narrative Reconstruction: Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated 113 5 Escaping Towards History: Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay 148 6 Dreaming of Reconstruction: David Mitchell’s number9dream 181 Conclusion: The Coming of Age of Reconstruction 215

Notes 255 Works Cited 267 Index 277

vii

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Introduction: Epitaph on a Ghost, or the Impossible End of Postmodernism

On 24 September, 2011, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London opened their exhibition “Postmodernism – Style and Subversion 1970–1990,” which with those innocent-looking four numbers after the dash, declared an end to something that had claimed to be endless. Postmodernism, which proposed the end of history, has apparently become dated. Its style, its subversion, it seems, has petered out and lost its force sometime around the beginning of the last decade of the old century. In spite of its antagonism to stable structures, it has become institutionalised. Its interest in the margins nowadays paradoxically occupies the centre. In contrast to its emphasis on the indetermina- ble and on absence, it has gradually come to signify a specific set of philosophical ideas, thematic foci and aesthetic devices. These are very present today, indeed, not only in academia but also in popular culture. Postmodernism, so one could surmise, has been too successful for its own agenda.1 The assessment of the curators of the V&A exhibition is shared by an increasing number of recent scholarly publications, also and perhaps particularly in the field of literary studies, which assert to different degrees of vehemence that postmodernism is (probably) over.2 This, of course, is not at all a new claim. The death-knells of postmodernist literature have notoriously been rung continuously ever since its birth. In fact, considering John Barth’s early manifesto “The Literature of Exhaustion,” literary postmodernism could be said to have been born a ghost. And, just like a ghost, it has proven exceedingly difficult to bury. As Ihab Hassan evocatively stated in 2001, looking back on the thirty years of his engagement with postmodernism: ‘I believe it is a revenant, the return of the irrepressible; every time we are rid of it, its ghost rises back. Like a ghost, it eludes definition. Certainly, I know less

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2 Literature after Postmodernism about postmodernism today than I did thirty years ago, when I began to write about it’ (“Postmodernity” 1). Few are as confident in their death- declarations as Linda Hutcheon, who concludes her epilogue to the second edition of The Politics of Postmodernism with the assertion that ‘the postmodern moment has passed’ (181), or as Robert McLaughlin, who diagnoses ‘an aesthetic sea change in literature, particularly fiction’ (“Post-Postmodern Discontent” 55). Nevertheless, the feeling that there has been a significant shift in literature published in the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century seems to be pervasive. Over the course of the last two decades, scholarly interest has increasingly turned towards the question of whether literature (or art in general for that matter) has moved beyond the postmodernist, how to best describe the emergent trend, and ultimately, whether such a move is conceivable at all. But if postmodernism has really come to an end, what will come next? Such an inquiry faces serious difficulties. As already indicated by Hassan’s perplexity, a major problem is posed by the contested definitions of postmodernism itself. Linda Hutcheon’s complaint that ‘[o]f all the terms bandied about in both current cultural theory and contemporary writings on the arts, postmodernism must be the most over- and under-defined’ (Poetics 3), is still as true as it was in 1988. A number of studies have since taken pains to review the usage and meanings of the term and struggled to find adequate definitions, only to reiterate its slipperiness. ‘Postmodernism,’ so they agree, has become ‘a kind of data-cloud, a fog of discourse, that showed up on the radar even more conspicuously than what it was supposed to be about’ (Connor 4). Thus, paradoxically, it still remains difficult to reconcile various understand- ings of postmodernism, even as a widely emerging consensus suggests that we are currently in the process of leaving postmodernism behind us. The picture becomes no clearer if one narrows the focus from a larger cultural situation to the specifics of what might constitute the aesthetics, ethics and politics of postmodernist literature in particular. The plethora of definitions, core texts and approaches that the term encompasses belie positivistic attempts to definitively circumscribe its canon. To declare an end to something as diffuse as postmodernism can therefore never be more than a rhetorical move which constructs its point of departure just as much as the new beginning it seeks to establish. Any attempt to move beyond postmodernism inevitably leads to a reduction of the complexity and instability of the term. Ultimately, every endeavour to make sense of larger tendencies in culture depends on such simplification. The attempt to avoid it, so Fredric Jameson reminds us, would risk to ‘fall back into a view of present history as

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Introduction: Epitaph on a Ghost 3 sheer heterogeneity, random difference, a coexistence of a host of distinct forces whose effectivity is undecidable’ (Postmodernism 6). Indeed, in the process of periodisation, the definite shape of any period is determined to a large degree by the one it is succeeded by. Just as modernism has partly come to be defined retrospectively by ‘post’-modernist revi- sions and deviations, the aesthetic shift to be perceived in the present moment will contribute to how future generations will think about postmodernism. Meanwhile, any claim for a move beyond postmodernism is predicated on two conditions. First, if authors and critics now strive to move beyond established paradigms, this impetus takes the form of an attempt to transcend institutionalised ideas of what postmodernist fiction is, means and does. The rapid institutionalisation of postmodernism, which has gained a firm foothold in most Western university curricula over the last decades, has contributed significantly to the gradual emergence of a general consensus of some kind on what postmodernist literature is all about. While definitions continue to be slip- pery, postmodernism has stratified sufficiently to be coherently taught and talked about, and perhaps in spite of itself, it has come to be identified with a distinct set of aesthetic strategies and philosophical ideas. Thus, the best evidence for postmodernism’s demise can perhaps be found in the fact that Bran Nicol, in the recent Cambridge Introduction to Postmodern Fiction, confidently presents its object to his student reader- ship as ‘something effectively in the past, like modernism, something we can treat as a more or less “complete” historical movement with its own set of core texts’ (xv). Due to its success postmodernist writing has become ‘the victim of a self-created paradox,’ as Richard Bradford puts it: ‘it has become what its practitioners sought and seek to avoid, a classifiable field and subgenre of literary writing’ (70). The second condition emerges directly from this internal contradiction. Postmodernism’s conundrum is increasingly felt to lie in the very nature of its incessantly oppositional stance. It derives its main incen- tive from a critique of established structures and forms; it is funda- mentally antagonistic, ‘a rejection of many, if not most, of the cultural certainties on which life in the West has been structured over the past couple of centuries’ (Sim, “Preface” vii). Ihab Hassan provides as good a characterisation as any when he highlights postmodernism’s main tune: ‘such terms of unmaking (antipoesis) as deconstruction, decenter- ing, dissemination, disruption, displacement, difference, discontinu- ity, demystification, delegitimisation, disappearance became as rife as rock songs’ (“Beyond Postmodernism?” 128–9). Debunking the grand

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4 Literature after Postmodernism narratives of progress and historical teleology, postmodernism is rooted in the idea of the end of history. As a system which exposes the absence at the core of all systems and questions the finality of all boundaries, postmodernism incorporates its own change and endless revision and thereby pre-empts any possibility of its own transcendence, always returning as the trace of what has supposedly been superseded. To move beyond postmodernism might thus be, strictly speaking, impossible, since the postmodernist project of questioning is endless and no longer allows for a succession of states that evolve out of one another. At the same time, however, postmodernism, as its name indicates, continues to define itself by the modernism it has overcome, exposing its myths, unsettling its structures, exploding its certainties. Indeed, Nicolas Bourriaud suggests that postmodernism is eternally determined by its various antagonists. It is ‘an interminable “afterwards”; after the myth of progress, after the revolutionary utopia, after the retreat of colonialism, after the battles for political, social and sexual emancipa- tion’ (5).3 Even while questioning teleology and progress, postmodernism understands itself as a process of overcoming and supersession and thus can hardly avoid evoking the very narrative of progression it hopes to abolish. Paradoxically, despite its professed endlessness, it may from today’s perspective appear as ‘a period of pause and levelling, brief as befits a historical moment entirely determined by the one before – a marshy delta on the river of time’ (Bourriaud 5). So one may ask, what happens to postmodernism’s oppositional stance, what happens to subversion, this central postmodernist attitude, when it has become the topic of a V&A exhibition and thus entered the rooms of national institutions of royal tradition? When irony and self- reflexivity, those other two hallmarks of postmodernism, have become pervasive in everyday discourse and have been adopted and commodi- fied in popular culture? Or, as David Foster Wallace puts the question in his much-cited essay on the interrelation between television and recent fiction “E Unibus Pluram”: ‘What do you do when postmodern rebellion becomes a pop-cultural institution?’ (68). Wallace’s spirited essay is an important reference in this connection, as he suggests that the increasing desire to escape from postmodernist subversion and rebellion may be more than merely the oedipal ennui of ‘artists [who] have become tired of recycling increasingly predictable postmodernist devices’ (Eshelman, Performatism 32) in an incessant consumerist desire for something new. Rather, postmodernist scepticism and irony, which has for the longest time been claiming to serve a liberating purpose, has seen increasing commercialisation and has

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Introduction: Epitaph on a Ghost 5 gradually come to look like the paint with which we adorn the walls of our prison. Postmodernism relies upon the effectiveness of scepticism and self-reflexive irony as its prime means for questioning the beliefs of society and for providing new perspectives on accepted truisms. But scepticism and irony have become so pervasive in popular consumerist culture that art might now be called upon to provide a counter- balance, a respite from the irony haunting Western cultural expression (cf. Donovan 9; Maltby 29). After all, as Wallace impatiently declares: ‘irony’s singularly unuseful when it comes to constructing anything to replace the hypocrisies it debunks’ (“E Unibus” 67). Jonathan Franzen makes a similar point, complaining with characteristic gloom that

when the avant-garde is all that remains – when the rebels who kept the establishment honest are themselves enshrined as the establishment – we’re left without an opposition. I see academy (and foresee a national literature, produced by academics) lost in fantasies of transgression and subversion that are likely only to confirm for young people, who have a keen sense of bullshit, the complete irrelevance of literature. (“More of the Same” 36)

The question here takes the guise of a dramatic showdown: Post- modernism against Literature, and one of the two has to die. But even without such polemical verve, one may point, as Siân Adiseshiah and Rupert Hildyard do, to the change in the political climate after the end of the Cold War, to the rise of fundamentalism, to 9/11 and its aftermath, to the technical advances and the life-changing influences of globalisation, to a neo-liberal hypercapitalism gone rampant and the dissolution of economic optimism in the course of global financial crisis, to the spreading of the awareness of the finiteness of resources and the global challenge of climate change, and surmise that the circumstances under which postmodernism arose have seen quite radical change (cf. 1). Is it not to be expected that literature, too, would change, or rather that it had better change if it wants to remain relevant? Franzen’s own case exemplifies well how the rhetoric of a new departure is predicated on a limited view of postmodernism, referring to the latter mainly in its institutionalised form as a discourse of alterity and scepticism that defines itself first and foremost as subversive. After having written two novels in the postmodernist vein, Franzen programmatically returned to social realism in his third (and first successful) novel, The Corrections (2001). He reflected on this decision in a by now notorious

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6 Literature after Postmodernism essay published in Harpers Magazine, in which he casts this return as no less than a declaration of war on postmodernism (cf. “Perchance to Dream”). Still, his oppositional stance notwithstanding, Franzen’s realism is deeply informed by, and indeed based on, postmodernist insights (cf. Burn 51 and passim). The new kind of realism does not revoke postmodernist claims about the power of discourse and the inaccessibility of the real, about the fragmentation of the subject and the impossibility of truth. Instead, it acknowledges them even while it asserts itself in spite of them. After postmodernism, we may find the ‘both/and’ (which postmodernism, thus a large critical consensus, has generally favoured over the modernist ‘either/or’) replaced by wilful aesthetics of the ‘in spite of,’ or as Geoffrey Holsclaw suggests, an attitude of ‘true/but still.’ Franzen’s case seems to exemplify a more general mood swing. There is a noticeable attempt in recent theory and literary practice to escape from this state of persistent belatedness and spectral form, which exists only by reference to what it no longer embodies. As Nicoline Timmer puts it:

the ‘tactic’ of deconstructing is always parasitical on existing systems, structures and ideas. But now, the call for an alternative vision is heard more loudly. Quite simply put it is not unthinkable that after endless proposals for deconstructions, a desire to construct will break through. (21; original emphasis)

Among scholars who are currently trying to chart the contemporary (possibly) transitional moment in literature, this diagnosis seems to find almost unanimous consent. Meanwhile, opinions on what precisely will eventually be remembered as the dominant factor in the current literary shift vary widely. Never- theless, realism, sincerity and authenticity make their appearance with a striking frequency: ‘Neo-Realism’ (Rebein, Dirty Realist), ‘Speculative Realism’ (Saldívar), ‘New Sincerity’ (Kelly), ‘Aesthetics of Authenticity’ (Funk) or ‘Aesthetic of Trust’ (Hassan). All these suggestions stress some sort of a return to the real not only in their labels. But there also seems to be a general agreement that this development does not constitute as radical a break as Franzen purports it to be. Quite the contrary, another point of general agreement is that these labels describe a shift of interest, rather than a rupture, that the literature they are concerned with holds on to much of what was postmodernist but looks beyond postmodernism’s constant endeavours to disrupt, to alienate and to subvert. It attempts to bridge the rupture (not to cover it), to be accessible

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Introduction: Epitaph on a Ghost 7

(though not transparent), to create (but not to posit). After and because of deconstruction, it seeks to reconstruct.

Fantasy: of literature beyond subversion

Let’s assume the curators of the V&A exhibition have got a point. Let’s say subversion’s dominance ended in 1990 and we have entered a phase of reorientation and reconstruction. Would the widely asserted return to realism follow as an inevitable consequence? What would such an aesthetic shift entail for the anti-realist, the marvellous or the fantastic, which has been hailed as The Literature of Subversion ever since Rosemary Jackson published her seminal study by that title in the 1980s? After all, a well-established consensus has it that the primary function and main ethical potential of the fantastic mode lies in its ability to ‘erode the pillars of society by un-doing categorical structures’ (Jackson 176). So what will happen to a literary mode that has seen a considerable rise in academic status within the context of postmodernism, precisely because it succeeded in presenting itself as inherently subversive? Will the literature of the fantastic subside again into the scholarly obscurity from which it had just struggled to escape? These questions serve as the starting point of my investigation. Thus, this book will offer no overview of the vast variety of aesthetic means and topics to be found in recent literature as others have attempted (cf. Bradford; Head; Boxall; Tolan). Neither do I aim for a comprehen- sive analysis of the state of the fantastic in contemporary literature in general. Rather, I shall focus on a small number of novels, all of which employ versions of the fantastic mode in a similar way, and I ask how these texts relate to the characteristics of the present aesthetic shift as it is currently being described by an increasing number of scholars. Since the novels do not simply adhere to the proclaimed return to realism, the question arises of how they use fantastic elements in response to and negotiation with their postmodernist predecessors. Focusing thus on one specific strategy to respond to and escape from postmodernism which has so far largely escaped critical notice, my readings can enter into a productive and mutually illuminating dialogue with the main critical claims about the present literary moment.4 The four novels at the heart of my argument, all of which were published at the beginning of the millennium, around the same time as Franzen’s The Corrections, show a striking similarity in the way they employ the fantastic: they include fantastic narratives as fictions within fictions, safely embedded in a (in the widest sense) realist frame story.

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8 Literature after Postmodernism

Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves (2000) poses as an academic treatise discussing a gothic horror film, reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project in its documentary style, but clearly states in its diegetic frame that the film is not only fictional, but is, indeed, itself a fiction: it never existed within the fictional reality the novel establishes in the first place. Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated (2002) combines the story of a heritage trip to the Ukraine with the fabulous novel one of the protagonists writes about the shtetl of his ancestors. Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000) pays loving tribute to the early comic book and includes some of the superhero stories the novel’s protagonists invent. Finally, David Mitchell’s number9dream (2001) presents its readers with a whole line-up of fantasies ranging from daydreams and nightmares to video games and marvellous children’s stories, all embedded in a fairly straightforward, though rather unconventional, coming-of-age story. In order to address the basic commonalities shared by a variety of significantly diverse genres extending from horror and magic realism to video games and fables, my definition of the fantastic is fairly broad. Nevertheless, I do not simply juxtapose it to realism.5 Instead, the central characteristic of the fantastic in my understanding of the mode is that it variously contrasts two essentially different literary stances, the mimetic and the marvellous. It is thus situated in the middle position on what may be envisioned as a continuum of possible interactions between the two stances (I will clarify my use of ‘stance,’ ‘mode’ and ‘genre’ shortly). At the mimetic end of such a continuum one finds literary texts which aim to stay as close to extratextual reality as possible, such as non-fiction novels, new journalism, autobiography, documentaries or travelogues.6 On the other end, that of the marvellous, one might situ- ate texts that depict imaginary realms and other worlds, like fairy tales, some science fiction, or what Brian Attebery calls ‘formula fantasy’ (3). Every literary text could be positioned somewhere along the continuum that spans between these two poles, leaning towards one or the other, either ‘mimetically dominated’ or ‘fantasy [I would say ‘marvellous’] dominated’ (Cornwell 39). To call a text mimetic in this sense would thus not necessarily mean that it reproduces conventions of nineteenth-century realism, but that it lays claim to a certain authenticity and referential accuracy of representation, that it endeavours to hold up a mirror to either an objective or a subjective reality. The mimetic stance thus pays tribute to that artistic ideal of correspondence to reality, which is symbolised by the grapes of Zeuxis, an ideal that is deeply

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Introduction: Epitaph on a Ghost 9 ingrained in Western culture.7 My use of the term ‘mimesis’ has to be understood as strictly limited to its association with this ideal, not in its wider Aristotelian sense of general narrative verisimilitude or in its rhetorical signification as imitatio. Moreover, what I call a mimetic stance is not dependent on a specific style or set of conventions. I thus understand the mimetic in the wide sense Andrzej Ga˛siorek gives realism, ‘not so much a set of textual characteristics as a general cognitive stance vis-à-vis the world, which finds different expression at different historical moments, manifesting itself in a wide range of fictional forms’ (14).8 It refers to the relation the text is understood to establish with the extratextual world, the intentionality it develops towards it, and not to specific means by which a text strives to establish that relation nor to the respective success of such means. Conversely, the marvellous stance involves a deliberate departure from perceivable reality and thus a willing suspension of the claim to reflect the extratextual world, as in Stendhal’s famous mirror. In purely marvellous texts the supernatural, the magical and the bizarre are usu- ally taken for granted, and the text-world explicitly does not coincide with the extratextual world. Thus accurate depiction and approxi- mation of reality in representation no longer serve as the yardsticks of artistic achievement, even though verisimilitude, in the sense of coherence and narrative congruity, certainly remains important. Just as strategies of the mimetic stance are not restricted to the code conventions of nineteenth-century realism, the marvellous is not necessarily dependent on the supernatural. The two stances also raise different reader expectations and demand different reading strategies and ways of interpretation. In that sense, mimesis and the marvellous are as much stances of reading as they are stances of production. A marvellous text implies a reader who accepts that it does not mirror reality and who realises that it imagines a different, marvellous world – a reader who does not read the fairy tale for its historical accuracy or the fable for its precise depiction of animal behaviour. A mimetic text, by contrast, implies a reader who acknowledges its attempts to depict reality and does not take it for pure fanciful invention. The differences between the stances in such clear cases remain latent, inconspicuous and unproblematic. Only when they enter into some sort of contradiction within the text, when it becomes difficult to dis- tinguish and keep them apart, only then do differences in form, function and interpretation become salient, taking a prominent position in a text’s creation of meaning. It is precisely such kind of uncertainty

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10 Literature after Postmodernism arising from the combination of the two stances that characterises the fantastic mode. Whereas the stances describe different attitudes literary texts take towards reality, the fantastic mode, as I propose to understand the term here, refuses to be entirely annexed to either of the stances. As Lance Olsen puts it, the fantastic ‘[h]over[s] between the marvelous and the mimetic modes [I would say ‘stances’] on our continuum.’ It is ‘a mode that confounds and confuses the marvelous and the mimetic [, that] plays one mode off the other, creating a dialectic which refuses synthesis’ (Ellipse 19). While the fantastic mode often leans towards one or the other stance, it derives its main effect and pleasure from an exploitation of their basic irreconcilability. I therefore use ‘stance’ to describe two basic ‘impulses’ (Hume 20) of literature, in preference to talking of juxtaposed codes as others have done (cf. Chanady; Kluwick),9 while I reserve the term ‘mode’ to des- ignate the fantastic as a conspicuous combination of the two stances. While the fantastic itself is not a stance, since it is not of the same nature and generality as the two basic impulses or poles of the mimetic and the marvellous which it combines and juxtaposes, I also prefer not to speak of it as a genre. Itself a highly contested term, genre would seem to be of more use to describe historically and formally more clearly determined literary forms. In contrast to that, the fantastic mode, as I use the term here, can manifest itself in various ways. The classical gothic fantastic and magic realism, for example, would be two prominent exponents of the mode, which differ not in their basic fantastic nature but primarily in the specific ways in which they combine the two stances.10 The combination, juxtaposition and interplay of the two basic stances are central to the aesthetic project of all the novels which I discuss in more detail in the following pages. Nevertheless, none of them is straightforwardly fantastic. Instead, it is essential that, in all of them, fantastic narratives are inserted as embedded stories and are marked as fictions within fictions in the course of the frame tale. What these novels do therewith, one could argue, is to contain the fantastic safely within the bounds of fiction. Whereas the claims for a subversive potential of the fantastic that have largely dominated the discussion of the mode over the last decades were based on the supposed rupture of the discourse of the real by the intrusion of the supernatural, in the case of the framed fantastic tales encountered in these texts, reality is never under any lasting strain. After all, the fantastic elements are explicitly exposed as fictional within the reality of the text-world that the frame tale establishes. There is therefore, for the most part, little ontological claim to the fantastic occurrences narrated in these texts.

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Introduction: Epitaph on a Ghost 11

They do not disturb a sense of verisimilitude and the possible because they are revealed to be mere products of the characters’ imaginations. The fantastic refrains from asserting its own reality and thus no longer induces readers to question their ontological convictions in order to acknowledge its existence. But can this simply be subsumed to the widely proclaimed return to realism after postmodernism’s anti-realist agenda? If so, why draw on the fantastic mode at all? What function does it fulfil within the texts, in particular with regard to their endeavour to go beyond postmodernism? I propose that a closer consideration of these questions can do much to contribute to a better understanding of the ways in which my literary examples position themselves with regard to postmodernist discourse, and therewith helps to gain further insight into the qualities and characteristics of the wider aesthetic shift in recent literature.

From postmodernism to reconstruction: a chapter overview

Part I of this study provides the discursive and theoretical context in which these questions arise. Chapter 1 is dedicated to an overview of the current debate about a movement beyond postmodernism.11 I delin- eate how my own findings relate to a current critical discourse about a moment of transition, whose incipient influence seems to register in various ways on the contemporary Western literary scene. While this debate is currently gaining momentum, it is still in its initial stages and quite heterogeneous. I compare and juxtapose different critical assess- ments of literature after postmodernism in order to identify common basic features pervading the discussion. Following from this characterisation, I argue for the usefulness of the term ‘reconstruction’ to describe recent aesthetic developments.12 After such a characterisation of the larger academic and literary context in which the debate is situated, Chapter 2 will focus more specifically on the question of what role the fantastic may play within this emergent change. Taking into account the specific narrative structure of the novels discussed, I set out to rethink common assumptions about the mode and suggest an alternative approach. Based on my understanding of the fantastic mode as a hesitation between two stances, I suggest that within these novels the epistemological and ontological questions that have long been at the centre of the fantastic are gradually being displaced by what I would call pragmatic considerations. I thus propose to add a third, mediating term to the ‘methodological double standard’ between semantic and syntactic approaches to definitions of

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12 Literature after Postmodernism the fantastic which Fredric Jameson described and lamented in a chapter of The Political Unconscious (95). Semantic approaches, according to Jameson, ‘aim to describe the essence or meaning of a given genre by way of the reconstruction of an imaginary entity [ . . . ] which is something like the generalized existential experience behind the individual texts’ (94). Syntactic approaches, in contrast, try to define a genre by laying down its structural and formal rules, ‘where genre is apprehended in terms of a series of determinate functions, or what we will call a structure or a fixed form’ (94).13 I would argue that what is missing both from Jameson’s list and from most of the discussion about the mode is an explicitly pragmatic focus: A pragmatic approach would foreground the role genre (or mode, for that matter) plays in structuring reader expectation and response, a process that has to be understood as reciprocal, as a position or perspective that is negotiated between textual clues and reader reception. While the semantic perspective, according to Jameson, ‘asks the text what it means’ and syntactic analyses ‘ask how it works’ (184, original emphasis), a pragmatic approach would ask for its effect. From this perspective it becomes possible to see the definition of the fantastic as continually under contestation on all three of these levels, with different theories emphasising different aspects according to their respective selection of literary texts and influenced by their historical and ideological biases. My own understanding, as it arises from the reconstructive tendencies in the contemporary novels I discuss, by no means claims to be an exception. While taking various semantic and syntactic approaches into account, the thoughts on the fantastic that I will develop in Chapter 2 are clearly biased towards the pragmatic, thus mirroring the increasing focus on the conditions of communication and the functions of the fictive that can be found in recent authors’ engagements with the mode. My usage of ‘pragmatic’ in this context is not exclusively derived from the philosophical school of thought which has adopted its name and which is currently seeing a decided revival, not only in form of Rortian neo-pragmatism, but also in a rediscovery and revaluation of earlier work by William James, Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey. Instead, I understand the term more generally as a useful nexus of inter- secting concerns that lie at the core of the specific use of the fantastic I am interested in. As a general philosophical term, a ‘pragmatic’ perspective complements ontological and epistemological considerations by foregrounding ethical and intersubjective tensions and problems. As a more specific philosophical programme, pragmatism emphasises the basis of truth and knowledge in communicative agreement. In the area

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Introduction: Epitaph on a Ghost 13 of linguistic research, a pragmatic approach explores the conditions and contexts of communication. Finally, in common usage, it may refer to a turn from theory to an engagement with the practicalities of day-to-day life. All these various aspects, I would argue, can be seen to converge to some extent in the specific use my literary examples make of the fantastic, as they use the mode to explore the pragmatic aspects of fictions. Drawing on Wolfgang Iser’s theory of the fictive, I argue that what my literary examples essentially do is to give prominence to an aspect of the fantastic that has previously remained mostly tacit: the fact that the fantastic, more than other genres or modes, is based on an exposure of the processes constituting the fictive. In order to clarify this claim, in the course of Chapter 2 I will discuss Wolfgang Iser’s theory of the fictive in some detail, as he developed it in his late work The Fictive and the Imaginary. To sum it up briefly at this point, he posits that the traditional juxtaposition of reality and fiction is misleading. Instead, the fictive has to be understood as a dynamic process of fictionalising acts which negotiate between the real and the imaginary. In the fictive, the determinacy of the real is opened up towards a multiplicity of meaning by the imaginary, while the indeterminate and shapeless imaginary can only take shape (in the sense of Gestalt) by drawing on the real. Iser’s concept of the fictive, I argue, mirrors the structure of the fantastic mode. Thus, the fantastic lends itself well to metafictional considerations that highlight the specific nature and workings of the fictive, since its essential effect is based precisely on exposing the constituting interaction between the real and the imaginary to view. As Tzvetan Todorov proposed, the fantastic can be said to ‘represent [ . . . ] the quintessence of literature, insofar as the questioning of the limit between real and unreal, proper to all literature, is its explicit center’ (168). Whereas the mimetic stance tends to hide the influence of the imaginary and the marvellous tends to hide its reliance on the real, the fantastic mode fore- grounds their mutual presence, be it in form of an antagonistic clash, as in the gothic fantastic, or in form of an ambiguous coexistence, as in the case of magic realism. A brief discussion of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi at this point allows me to illustrate my argument that an inclusion of fantastic stories as fictional artefacts, which are produced and consumed within the bounds of the frame narrative, may serve as a double focus on the nature and the functions of the fictive. All the novels I discuss include fictions within fictions and are concerned with the ways in which both the production and consumption of narrative fictions influence and shape their

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14 Literature after Postmodernism protagonists. They draw on the fantastic as paradigmatically fictive in order to emphasise that such questions are not sufficiently answered by considering a text’s degree of referentiality and claim to mimetic fealty, but that the contribution of the imaginary needs to be taken into account. These novels are thus truly metafictional, not in the postmodernist sense of illusion-breaking self-reflection, but in different senses: they are metafictional in that they foreground the interplay of the real and the imaginary in the fictive, and in that they raise pragmatic questions about its uses and consequences. They employ the fantastic not to question and subvert our sense of reality but to explore the creative potential of fictions. After this introduction into the theoretical and methodological prem- ises that inform my perspective, Part II turns to detailed readings of the four contemporary novels mentioned above, chiselling out their respective reconstructive substrata. In their own ways, each of these texts could be described as ‘novels after theory,’ a phrase Judith Ryan uses for the ‘remarkable number of novels [that] is substantially informed by theory’ (1) in the literary production of the last forty years.14 Their awareness of theoretical discourses deeply informs the responses to the challenges of postmodernism these contemporary authors develop. As the following chapters will show, House of Leaves makes its debt, not only to the ideas, but also to the very discourse of literary theory quite explicit (engaging in particular with poststructuralism and deconstruction à la Derrida). Everything is Illuminated and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay both enter into a creative dialogue with postmodernist concerns about historical narrative, truth in representation and theories of trauma, while number9dream is concerned with the simulation and simulacra of capitalist consumer culture and the fragmentation of identity. Each of the novels thus constructs the particular version of postmodernism it reacts to, a construction that is necessarily limited and reductive, broken down to a handful of specific aspects. In this, various strands of postmodernist theory serve as an implicit counterpoint, a tacit backdrop against which the novels’ creative innovations can be delineated and situated. Nevertheless, the fact that they single out particular (and often simplified) theoretical positions from among those that are associated with postmodernism does not derogate their responses. Although their engagement with and eventual departure from postmodernism may be, to a considerable extent, a rhetorical move, their constructions of both themselves and of their postmodernist predecessors does not render their reconstructive objective invalid

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Introduction: Epitaph on a Ghost 15 and meaningless. After all, all literary history is based on constructions. ‘“[P]ostmodernism,”’ writes Brian McHale, ‘is one of them. So, too, for that matter is “literature” itself’ (Constructing 2). My observations about such individual endeavours gain a broader relevance in their focus on the similarity of the parameters informing these reconstructive attempts to move beyond the postmodernist. Even while the postmodernisms they construct, each in their turn, are highly divergent, their central concerns are closely related. All of them shift their focus from ontological and epistemological questions to pragmatic ones in an attempt to reclaim fiction as a form of communication that actually manages to convey meaning, however unstable and compro- mised it may be. In face of the postmodernist tenets of the inaccessibility of the real, the indeterminacy of meaning and the impossibility of truth, they explore the ways in which we nonetheless understand reality, construct meanings and communicate with each other. In face of the omnipresence of fiction, they ask for our agency in its production and to assume responsibility for the fictions we tell. Tracing these concerns in their various manifestations and contexts in the four novels, I will begin by discussing a work which, for all appearances, very much still adheres to postmodernism, both in form and in content: Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. While a postmodernist interpretative approach offers much insight into this text (as has frequently been demonstrated), I single out those aspects that escape such a perspective. Looking in detail at the use of fantastic elements in conjunction with the text’s highly complex narrative structure, I argue that the novel eventually turns away from its postmodernist ontological and epistemological scepticisms and commits itself to a narrative of intersubjective responsibility and the possible contribution of fictions to a story of maturation. Whereas in Danielewski such a reconstructive project is still highly dubitable and tentative, Foer’s novel Everything is Illuminated is much more confident in celebrating fiction’s ethical and creative potential. With deliberate, paradoxically self-conscious naïveté, it asserts the value of the fictive both as marvellous and as mimetic, juxtaposing the possibilities and limits of the two stances in a representation of the absent that pitches its loving tribute against the inaccessibility of the real. If one finds the ‘true/but still,’ the ‘in spite of’ that seems to mark the move beyond the postmodernist precariously established after a long existential struggle at the end of House of Leaves, for Everything is Illuminated it both constitutes the novel’s central thematic tension and serves as the very premise for the narrative. In Foer’s novel, one finds

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16 Literature after Postmodernism humour in spite of horror, representation in spite of absence, truth in spite of unreliability and scepticism, love in spite of the impossibility of love. Meanwhile, it is precisely the exposure of the workings of the fictive in the fantastic that allows for the realisation of such an ‘in spite of.’ On this basis, the novel celebrates the role of fictional creation for an engagement with the past and the present whose ethical value lies in a process of intersubjective communication and an awareness of narrative responsibility. By comparison, in Chabon’s novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay the attitude of ‘in spite of’ has truly come into its own. Its implica- tions, possibilities and ethical consequences are never similarly pon- dered and agonised over as they are in the previous two novels. Instead, they are tacitly taken for granted and serve as the basis for the novel’s focus on the other extreme of the pendulum’s amplitude: If Danielewski’s and Foer’s novels were centrally concerned with the possibility and impossibility of fiction’s representation of reality and truth, both generally and in their use of the fantastic mode specifically, Chabon’s novel turns towards an exploration of the benefits and problems of escapism. In this, the novel not only commends the ability of fiction to offer an escape to the realm of the imaginary, but also points to the importance of a reconnection to reality. It thus stresses the interaction of both aspects of the fictive negotiations as defined by Iser, the imaginary and the real. While the celebration of the fictive in Everything is Illuminated tends to foreground the imaginary, Kavalier & Clay, for all its praise of escapism, eventually insists on the complementary importance of the determining function of the real as the basis for maturity and responsibility. By bringing the novels into this order, my discussion thus suggests the possibility of reading them as successive steps in a reconstructive move beyond postmodernism, a progression that will further figure centrally in the reading of my last literary example, David Mitchell’s novel number9dream. House of Leaves is doubtlessly still deeply entrenched in postmodernism, both formally and thematically, and is centrally concerned with many of its main philosophical and aesthetic quandaries. While full of postmodernist playfulness on the surface, Everything is Illuminated turns its back on postmodernism in its deliberately naïve belief in the power of love and fiction. Drawing extensively on aesthetic devices that have long been associated with postmodernism, Foer’s novel never does so to the same anti-illusionist and subversive effect. Kavalier & Clay, then, largely leaves postmodernism’s aesthetic strategies behind, turning instead to the conventions of the social historical

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Introduction: Epitaph on a Ghost 17 novel. Nevertheless, it remains informed by postmodernist insights. Postmodernism is not simply rejected or ignored but made productive for a reconsideration of the possibilities, functions and responsibilities of fiction. While House of Leaves engages with postmodernism very explicitly and centrally, in Kavalier & Clay such an engagement has receded to an underlying premise, a foundation on which the novel develops its own aesthetics. Strikingly, the increasing distance to postmodernism that can be traced in the successive novels is accompanied by a change in their choice of fantastic genre. In House of Leaves, readers encounter a classical fantastic scenario of fear, uncertainty and struggle, closely associated with the early exponents of the mode in nineteenth-century gothic fiction. The supernatural is experienced as a threatening intrusion rupturing the surface of everyday reality. Everything is Illuminated, in contrast, recalls a somewhat more recent manifestation of the fantastic mode, the genre of magic realism. In the fantastic narrative strand of the novel, the supernatural elements are seamlessly integrated into the narrative reality, and accepted as natural by the characters without caus- ing anxiety or fear. Finally, in the fantastic narrative strands of Kavalier & Clay, which turns to superhero narratives, the supernatural itself is the focus, its embedding within reality is secondary. This effectively amounts to an ever-stronger imbalance towards the marvellous stance in the forms of the fantastic modes employed by the novels. But this apparent shift of sympathy towards the marvellous at the same time comes with an increasingly clear demarcation of ontological boundaries. The precise relation to reality of the fantastic story at the heart of House of Leaves remains somewhat uncertain throughout the novel, and fantastic narration in Everything is Illuminated does arise from and refer to real circumstances. In contrast, Kavalier & Clay insistently reasserts genre boundaries, despite admitting freely to the fictionality of its own framing mimetic narrative strand. An increasing investment in genre distinctions, which strives not so much to (re-)establish ontological boundaries but rather insists on the basic difference between the two stances, marvellous and mimetic, while emphasising their equal and complementary validity, thus seems to be part and parcel of the move beyond postmodernism these novels effect. In order to recapitulate and draw these aspects together, I finally turn to David Mitchell’s novel number9dream, as a last case study. Because it includes several different kinds of inserted narratives and fantastic genres, the discussion of this novel allows me to effectively retrace the steps from the existential struggles with ontological uncertainty

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18 Literature after Postmodernism in House of Leaves, via the quandaries of representation in Everything is Illuminated, to Kavalier & Clay’s concerns with escapism. At the same time, number9dream initially repeats the aforementioned trend towards an increasingly clearer differentiation between the two stances. However, just like this trend never quite leads to an unreservedly committed return to realism, not even in the case of Kavalier & Clay, number9dream eventually swings back into the fantastic mode in its last chapter. Once again, the fantastic mode is employed as a stand-in for the fictive itself, which the novel eventually invokes for its creative potential to form and transform both self and world. But Mitchell’s novel also brings an aspect to the fore that is implicitly evoked, not only in all of the novels, but also in the very trajectory of my argument throughout Part II: all of them present us, to various degrees, with Bildungsroman narratives.15 In my concluding chapter, I turn my attention to the various Bildungsroman trajectories the novels describe and ask for their possible relevance for and connection to contemporary literary attempts to leave postmodernism behind. While such a revival of the Bildungsroman narrative is striking in itself in view of a widespread scepticism towards the genre in modernism and postmodernism, I will ask for the common characteristics of the contemporary evocations. Paying particular attention to the role of father figures in these texts, I argue that the decidedly conciliatory nature of the protagonists’ struggle to come into their own reflects the relation between postmodernism and its reconstructive successor. Since the traditional Bildungsroman trajectory is a specifically male one, I will juxtapose this discussion to some observations on the reconstructive traits of three novels by female authors, Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin (2000), A. S. Byatt’s The Biographer’s Tale (2000) and Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love (2005). Finally, I offer some concluding thoughts about possible connections of the perceived reconstructive aesthetic shift to a larger cultural change, to ask whether they might indeed herald the passing not only of postmodernism, but even of postmodernity.

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Index

Major entries are in bold.

9/11 5 allegory 56, 58, 59, 62–3, 121, 133–4, 152, 170, 234, 236, 242, Abel, Elizabeth 240 250, 253, 260, 263 Abrams, Meyer Howard 211 Allison, Dorothy 27 absence 63–4, 80, 82, 85, 86, 87, 89, alterity 5, 52, 54, 82, 87, 151, 223 95, 105–8, 110, 116, 118, 126–31, see also other, the 135–6, 138, 143, 146, 152, 168, America 21, 23, 24, 121, 138, 150, 212, 216, 234, 261 152, 163, 164–5, 172, 173, 174, of fathers 216, 224–33, 252 176, 192, 206, 227, 252, 256, 257, postmodernist emphasis on 1, 4, 258, 262, 268 64, 83–4, 93, 112 American Dream 148, 163, 168 of the real 63, 64, 65, 126, 183 Amian, Katrin 117, 120, 131, 140 and representation 15, 16, 69–70, anachronism 23–4, 74, 104, 139, 183 86, 93, 145 Anderson, Paul Thomas 29 Adams, Jenni 262 Anderson, Perry 256 Adams, Marie Ann 237 Anderson, Wes 29 Adiseshiah, Siân 5, 47, 255 Andrews, Bruce 36 adolescence 165–6, 172, 190–1, anti-illusionism 14, 16, 26, 29, 30, 250 33, 42, 109, 136, 156–7, 165, 170, see also coming of age; youth 179, 187, 193–4, 206, 211, 213, Adorno, Theodor 143 220–1, 239, 241 Aeneas 104 compare disillusion aesthetics 45, 63, 73, 75, 95, 114, anti-realism 7, 11, 32, 41, 44, 48, 151, 155, 162, 182, 198, 255 54, 257 aesthetic education 241, 245 anti-rebels 23 aesthetic illusion 26, 153, 156–60, anxiety 17, 44, 139, 183, 186 165 of influence 224 comic-book see comic books Arabian Nights 259 magic realist see magic realism architecture 80, 258 modernist see modernism Ariadne 100 postmodernist see postmodernism Armitt, Lucie 52, 53, 260 realist see realism art 2, 5, 9, 25, 33, 53, 114, 143, 150, reconstructive 2–3, 6–7, 10, 11, 153–4, 164, 165, 166–7, 173, 174, 17, 18, 23, 28–44, 46, 47, 83, 116, 176, 213, 237, 245–6, 252, 256, 187, 233, 256, 258 262 affect 33, 38, 45, 51, 59, 108, 123, Arthurian sagas 259 125, 143, 248 Attebery, Brian 8, 52 agency 15, 48, 49, 64–5, 74, 96, 104, Atwood, Margaret 146, 165, 172, 183, 190–1, 196, The Blind Assassin 18, 233, 235–7, 210, 212, 213, 221, 248 240

277

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278 Index

Auerbach, Erich 44, 160 binaries 37, 251 Auschwitz 143 Blair Witch Project, The 8 Auster, Paul 258, 259 Bloom, Harold 80, 224, 225 Man in the Dark 21–2, 48, 185, 264 Boes, Tobias 241, 257, 266 authenticity 6, 8, 26–8, 30, 33–4, book 102, 104, 107–8, 111, 131–3, 42–3, 45, 47, 48, 71, 85, 86, 92, 136, 138, 143, 175, 201–2, 208–9, 95, 116, 156, 158, 160, 181, 204, 234, 262 257, 260 Borges, Jorge Luis 184 authorial involvement 26 Boulter, Jonathan 189, 204, 206, authorship 27, 36, 38, 42, 71, 102, 207, 264 105, 116, 140, 142, 184, 203, 208, Bourdieu, Pierre 223 216, 224, 233, 239, 244 Bourriaud, Nicolas 4, 257, 259 autobiography 8, 61, 116, 165, 235, Bowers, Maggie Ann 119, 261 238–9 Boxall, Peter 7, 40, 120 avant-garde 5, 30, 47, 164, 224 Boym, Svetlana 170 Bradford, Richard 3, 7, 40, 264 Baker, Nicholson 29 Brick, Martin 87 Bakhtin, Michail M. 254 Brooke-Rose, Christine 60, 259, 260 Barnacle, Hugo 115, 201 Bruno, Giordano 21 Barth, John 1, 52 Buchanan, Ian 225 Giles Goat-Boy 242 Buckley, Jerome Hamilton 223 Barthes, Roland 27 Burn, Stephen J. 6, 25, 232, 258 effet de réel 157 Byatt, A. S. 240 Baudrillard, Jean 183, 196, 265 The Biographer’s Tale 18, 233, Baumbach, Noah 29 237–40 beauty 63–4, 90–1, 95, 98, 125, 134, 140, 173, 190, 239 capitalism 14, 155, 176, 183, 192, Beddow, Michael 241 210, 212, 225, 236, 245, 249–51, Begley, Adam 116 264, 266 Behlman, Lee 126, 133, 138, 149, see also consumerism; 152, 153, 154–7, 162, 164, 175–6, hypercapitalism 179, 263 Carver, Raymond 24, 257 belief 5, 16, 22, 33, 36, 38–9, 41, 43, Castells, Manuel 258, 264–5 45, 47, 49, 51, 56–7, 58, 63–4, 84, Castle, Gregory 240, 241, 242, 245 98, 101, 110, 135, 160, 167, 169, catatonia 225 183, 187, 193–4, 196, 210, 235 centre 1, 3, 31, 37, 54, 64, 80–4, see also credibility; faith; disbelief 101, 110–11, 126, 169, 183, 226, Belletto, Steven 261 251 Bemong, Nele 261 Cervantes, Miguel Benfer, Amy 155, 174 Don Quixote 188, 191 Benton, Michael 49, 75, 248 Chabon, Michael Berlatsky, Eric L. 158, 168 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier Bertens, Han 256 and Clay 8, 14, 16–18, 148–80, biblical 44, 121, 164, 259 181–3, 215, 217, 218, 222, 227–8, Bildung 241–2, 244, 245 243, 252, 265 Bildungsroman 18, 97, 102, 154, 168, Maps and Legends 160–1, 178, 263 181–2, 188, 196, 206, 211–14, Chabot, C. Barry 47 215–16, 223, 226, 232, 240–54, Chanady, Amaryll Beatrice 10, 256 257, 264, 265, 266 Chen, Fanfan 255

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Index 279 children’s stories 8, 43–4, 201, 259 (im)possibility of 15, 28, 31, 36, Childs, Peter 183, 192, 193, 202, 38–9, 48, 65, 85, 116, 151, 221 209, 213, 252 community 28, 31, 33, 37, 49, 79, Chinese-box structure 48, 184, 235 88, 94, 101 106, 108, 109, 112, see also embedded narratives; mise 113, 131, 138, 141, 144, 222, 238, en abyme 246, 248 Chodorow, Nancy 240 Connor, Steven 2 Chute, Hillary 153, 164, 175–6, 179, conservatism 23, 70, 226, 249 263 conspiracy theories 184 cinema 87, 93, 186 consumerism 4, 5, 14, 43, 47, 160, see also film 183, 191–2, 199, 250, 266 Citizen Kane 156 contingency 25–6, 27, 28, 46, 52, Claviez, Thomas 24–5 75, 175, 213, 223 Clayton, David 60 conventions (literary) 28, 69–70, 73, climate change 5 164–5, 171, 219, 256, 263 closure 37, 63, 67, 71, 72, 206, 249 of Bildungsroman 188, 212 Cold War, The 5, 255 criticism of 26, 110, 182, 187, 217, Collado-Rodríguez, Francisco 262 219–20 colonialism 4, 250–1 of gothic horror 86–7, 88 comic book 8, 54, 148, 150–6, 159, of magic realism 120 161, 165, 171–3, 175–6, 179, 195, of realism 8–9, 16, 25–6, 40, 148, 227 154, 163, 206 aesthetics of 151, 153, 162–4, of superhero stories 151, 153 166–8, 173, 176 Cooper, Brenda 260 coming of age 188, 204, 212, 215, cooperation 42 222, 242, 253, 265 Coppola, Sophia 29 hero 212 Cornell, Joseph 155 narrative 8, 187, 188, 226, 242, Cornwell, Neil 8, 52 243, 251 Cottingley fairies 92 novels 243 counter-discourse 53 see also adolescence; Bildungsroman; creation maturation collaboration in 146, 149, 153, commercialisation 4, 150, 195, 200 162 commitment 15, 24, 30, 88, 91, 113, creative process 34, 55, 66, 75, 83, 174, 178–9, 182, 186, 218, 231, 85, 89–91, 94–5, 97, 100, 108–11, 240 118–20, 127, 135–6, 139, 140, to communication 36, 42, 48, 113 143, 145, 150, 154, 161, 166, to realism 18, 22, 40, 132, 216, 175–8, 208–10, 213, 218, 220, 236, 238 224–5, 238, 243–6, 252–3 communication 22, 24, 31, 32–44, of meaning see meaning, creation of 48–9, 58, 60, 64, 72, 79, 82, 86, see also fiction, creative potential of 88, 91, 93, 94–5, 97, 101, 109, credulity 23, 43, 194 146, 178, 216, 223, 230, 232, 235, see also belief; faith 244, 246, 247–8, 252, 254, 258 culture 2, 14, 18, 23, 36, 38, 41, 50, conditions of 12–13, 40 82, 87, 114–15, 117, 120, 121, fiction as 15–16, 26, 27, 36, 74, 136, 138, 152, 156, 184, 195, 110, 113, 118, 138, 150, 159, 160, 196, 214, 215, 216, 225, 231, 241, 177, 182, 210, 217–18, 221–2, 245–6, 249–50, 252–3, 255, 256, 224, 261 258, 259, 261, 266

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280 Index culture – continued différance 81, 100, 221 cultural context 241, 248, 256, Specters of Marx 255 259 desiring production 225 cultural discourse 38, 47, 255 Dewey, John 12 cultural dominant 61, 260 digimodernism 41–3, 45 cultural paradigm 41 digression 54, 85, 92, 96, 96, 161, cultural pessimism 36, 41, 44 188–9, 201, 203, 264 popular culture 1, 4–5, 163, 166, Dillon, Sarah 187, 264 196, 199–200, 265 disbelief 5, 58, 62, 92, 103, 160, 199 Western culture 3, 5, 9, 47, 176 suspension of 33, 39, 55, 73, cummings, e. e. 224 220–1 cyberpunk 190, 192–4, 205, 265 discourse 2, 4, 5–6, 10–11, 14, 31, 38, 47, 51, 53–4, 58, 60, 64, 66, Dada 164 75, 80, 108, 110, 114, 116, 117, Daedalus 262 120, 151, 159, 160–3, 171, 182, Dalí, Salvador 155–6 218–9, 239, 241, 244, 245, 250, Danielewski, Mark Z. 29, 105, 224 255, 258, 260, 263, 265 House of Leaves 8, 14–18, 31, see also cultural discourse 79–112, 113–14, 118, 126, 146, disillusion 28, 135, 165, 168, 170, 148–9, 151–2, 153, 157–8, 161, 179, 211, 241, 245 180–3, 215, 217, 220–1, 222, 224, compare anti-illusionism 228–30, 237–8, 244 Doctorow, E. L. 258 darkness 86, 88–9, 90–1, 93, 95, documentary 8, 86, 91–2, 95, 100, 98, 100–2, 103, 105, 106, 107, 238 111–12, 127, 133, 142, 143, 145, Dogme 95 25 222 Doherty, Brian 153 death 64, 88, 89, 103, 118, 122–5, Donovan, Christopher 5, 30 127–30, 136, 137, 139, 142–3, double framing 38–9, 72 145, 152, 191, 191, 197, 200, 205, see also frame 209, 212, 218, 229, 234–5, 237 dreams 49, 66, 124–5, 128, 132, 136, of the author 27 137, 150, 152, 159, 164, 166–7, by drowning 122, 124–5, 129, 170–1, 178, 182, 187, 188, 198–9, 132–3, 135, 188, 193–4, 208, 265 204–5, 207–13, 217, 218, 222, of the fantastic 57 231, 238, 244 of the novel 258 daydreams 8, 190–3, 199, 205 of postmodernism 1–2, 113 nightmares 8, 86, 96, 188, of the subject 242 197–200, 264 deconstruction 3, 6–7, 14, 35, 39, Duncan, Rebecca 63 47–8, 53, 74, 79, 80–5, 94, 105, Durst, Uwe 60, 255 110, 114, 118, 149, 160, 170, Dutta, Shomit 188, 264 221–2, 224, 226, 233, 236, 247, 252, 253, 257, 266 earnestness 42–4 Defoe, Daniel Easton Ellis, Bret 24 Robinson Crusoe 155, 163 Egan, Jennifer 233 Deleuze, Gilles 225 Eggers, Dave 29, 38, 42 DeLillo, Don 24, 25, 259 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Dell, Kerstin 232 Genius 31, 33–4 Derrida, Jacques 14, 30, 49, 80–1, embedded narratives 7–8, 10, 13, 17, 83–4, 111, 183, 266 48–9, 54–5, 65, 72–5, 86, 91, 93,

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Index 281

95, 134, 142, 150–1, 153–4, 156, fable 8, 9, 62, 181, 200–3 162, 188–9, 196–7, 202–3, 205, fabulation 24, 126, 158–9 217, 218, 232, 234–6 fairy tale 8–9, 198, 259 see also frame; Chinese-box faith 28–30, 31, 33, 35, 43, 87, 145, structure; mise en abyme 149, 151, 159, 167, 224, 229, 235, emotion 22, 23, 88, 122–3, 124, 196, 264 234 see also belief; credulity empathy 32–3, 35, 38, 125, 143–4, fallibilism 158 213 family 22, 86, 95, 119, 121, 174, Empire State Building, the 156, 163, 252, 264, 265 165, 175, 179 absence of 85, 88, 150, 152, 169, Enlightenment 44, 210, 241–2 226–8, 231, 246 entertainment 55, 74, 105, 118, reunion with 22, 28, 79, 88–9, 91, 160–1, 178, 183, 186, 194–56, 211–12, 215, 222, 230, 232, 242 210, 236 romance 225, 231 epiphany 27, 101, 211, 213, 239, see also father; grandfather; 242 grandmother; mother; son epistemological fantastic, the 7–11, 13–18, 39, 40, concerns 11–12, 40, 49, 55, 57–61, 43–4, 48, 51–75, 79, 82, 86–8, 63, 79, 87, 92–3, 102, 126, 181–2, 91–3, 95, 97, 102, 105–6, 109–10, 219, 247 113, 116–18, 125–8, 135–6, 138, questions 11, 15, 40, 49, 59, 74, 145–6, 148–54, 159, 161–2, 167, 93, 97, 105, 119, 149, 180, 181–2, 171–2, 176–80, 182, 187, 191–4, 199, 215, 234 194, 199–200, 205, 207, 215, shift 45–6, 49 217–18, 232–5, 255, 256, 257, erasure 80–1, 85, 89–91, 106, 108–9, 260–2 151, 185, 192, 212, 229 classical gothic 10, 17, 58, 61, escapism 16, 18, 52, 65, 66, 135, 87–8, 171–2 145, 151–4, 165, 171–7, 179, 181, fantastic hesitation 11, 55–60, 201, 218–19 63, 65, 68, 71–2, 74, 86, 92–3, Escher, M. C. 84 102, 106, 148–9, 186, 190, 194, Eshelman, Raoul 4, 37–9, 43, 45, 199–200, 203, 234–5, 260 63–4, 72, 258 fantastic intrusion 10, 17, 55, 59, Esty, Joshua 240, 250–1 60, 82, 86, 88, 103, 172, 179 ethics 117–20, 139–40, 145–6, 149, paradigmatic fictionality of 14, 152, 180, 183, 187, 230, 245, 265 55, 65, 66–75, 118, 215, 221, 232, and genre 7, 55, 65, 92 238–9 postmodernist 2, 181 and postmodernism 22, 24, 48, reconstructive emphasis on 12, 51–4, 58, 184–7 15–16, 30, 31, 33, 40, 49, 75, 113, pure 56, 59, 68, 92 127, 160, 184, 218–19, 221–3, fantasy 7, 52–3, 72, 82, 156, 175–6, 247, 253, 255 179, 180, 189, 194, 196, 200, 204, Eugenides, Jeffrey 258 222, 255, 260, 261, 265 Europe 22, 115, 149, 152, 164, 241, formula fantasy 8, 53, 260 248, 250, 262, 265 father 18, 37, 89, 97–8, 103–4, 134, Eve, Martin 35, 259 174, 175, 181, 186, 188, 190, 193, everyday life 49, 86, 91, 247–8 195–7, 199, 203, 205–6, 211–12, experimentalism 21, 25, 28, 40, 182, 214, 215–16, 224–31, 233, 234–5, 218, 224, 256, 257, 264 258, 262

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282 Index father – continued film 54, 86, 87, 89–93, 95, 107, 163, revolt against 46, 146, 223–5, 186, 192, 195, 197–8, 200, 213 242 see also cinema compare family; grandfather; financial crisis 5 grandmother; mother; son First World War 235, 266 fear 17, 24, 35, 55, 87–8, 98, 106, Fluck, Winfried 27, 257 172 Foer, Jonathan Safran Fellini, Federico 102 Everything is Illuminated 8, 14–18, Feuer, Menachem 262 113–47, 148–52, 154, 157–9, 161, fiction 2, 9, 13, 16, 22, 26, 48, 63–4, 181–3, 215, 217–18, 222, 224, 66, 71–5, 93–4, 97, 109, 117–20, 226, 230–1, 233, 252, 262, 263 125–6, 135–6, 145–6, 150, 157, folk-tales 65, 115, 119 160, 166–8, 177, 181–3, 188–90, footnotes 66, 80, 81, 83–4, 89, 192, 201–2, 208, 213, 216, 94, 96, 98–9, 102, 110, 156–7, 218–23, 232, 235, 238–9, 243–4, 229–30, 243 259, 261 forgiveness 104, 140, 143–4, 178 creative potential of 14–16, 102, Foucault, Michel 241 126, 145, 190 fragmentation 6, 14, 27, 31, 33, 35, and postmodernism 3, 52, 58, 73, 52, 96–7, 103–4, 130, 131, 133, 94, 157, 177, 179–80, 181, 183, 184, 213, 220, 237, 239, 242, 245, 184, 217–21 251 pragmatic aspects of 13–15, 17, frame 32, 48, 63, 73, 90, 216, 218, 33, 36, 38–40, 49, 74–5, 91, 102, 251–3 105, 110, 113, 117, 159, 184, narrative 7, 8, 10, 13, 38–9, 54, 219–21, 231, 234, 246, 252–4 73–4, 79, 86, 96–7, 99, 105, 119, within fictions see embedded 134, 142, 156, 161–3, 168, 186, narratives 188, 201–2, 217, 234–5, 260 see also fictive, the see also double framing fictionalising acts compare embedded narrative combination 69–70, 72, 109, 157, Franzen, Jonathan 5–7, 24, 29, 224 165, 201 The Corrections 5, 7, 258 selection 69–70, 72, 109, 157, 158, freedom 107, 173, 178–9, 186, 215, 165, 201 225, 231–2, 241, 242, 246–7, 249, self-disclosure 69, 71, 73, 159–61, 263 201, 223 imaginative 22, 73, 151, 201, 235 fictive, the 13–14, 16, 18, 55, 66–8, French Revolution 248 69–70, 72, 74, 102, 109–10, 112, Freud, Sigmund 223, 225, 231 117–19, 165, 175, 177, 181–2, Friedlander, Saul 118 187, 189, 205, 207, 210, 213, fundamentalism 5 218–19, 238, 245, 261 Funk, Wolfgang 6, 30, 33–4, 42, 45, functions of 12, 39–40, 65, 67–8, 255 70, 106, 152–3, 158–9, 167, 169, 171, 177, 179–80, 184, 221–2, Gannon, Todd 45, 258–9 225, 254 Gans, Eric 39 value of 15, 48, 154, 160, 169, Ga˛siorek, Andrzej 9, 40, 256, 257 177, 182, 224 gender 37, 53, 87, 233, 240, 258 see also fiction; fictionalising acts Genette, Gérard 55 Fielding, Henry genre 8, 10, 12–13, 44, 48, 60, 65, Joseph Andrews 189 114, 153–4, 159, 160, 162, 181–2,

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190, 192, 221, 233, 238, 244, 255, Hassan, Ihab Habib 1–2, 3, 6, 35, 256, 257 43, 54 conventions 26, 40, 52, 73, 87–8, Hawthorne, Nathanial 175 157, 217, 263 Hayles, N. Katherine 45, 87, 258–9 distinctions 17, 44, 48, 161, 165, Head, Dominic 7 182, 217–19 Heckman, Davin 47 see also under individual genres Hegerfeldt, Anne C. 260 Germany 122–3, 149, 150, 173, 241 Hess, Jared 29 Gessen, Keith 262 Hildyard, Rupert 5, 47, 255 ghost 1, 48, 56–7, 59, 92, 94, 98–9, Hirsch, Marianne 240 193–4, 255 historical fiction 59, 120, 149, ghost story 56 153–6, 158, 160–1, 164, 167–8, globalisation 5, 192, 247, 249–51 171, 177, 235 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 245 history 2, 22, 117–18, 121, 123, 125, Goldsmith, Kenneth 36 134, 150–60, 167–8, 181, 183, golem 156, 164, 175–6, 177–9 185, 203–5, 221, 222, 231, 243, gothic 8, 10, 13, 17, 87–8, 91, 95, 246, 250, 253–4, 263 148 historical accuracy 9, 115, 119–20, grandfather 114–15, 116, 119, 121, 126–7, 131, 139–40, 158–9, 203, 124, 126, 131–2, 137, 138–42, 236, 237 144–7, 175, 204, 230–1, 244 postmodernist critique of 1, 3–4, compare family; father; 14, 114, 120, 183 grandmother; mother; son Hitchcock, Alfred 224 grandmother 127, 144, 147, 188, Hoffmann, Gerhard 52, 60, 73 209, 212, 230, 233 Hollander, John 224 compare family; father; grandfather; Hollywood 43, 164, 221 mother; son Holocaust 117, 138, 143, 149, 152, Grass, Günther 233, 262, 265 Tin Drum 242, 254 Holsclaw, Geoffrey 6 gravity 83–4, 185 home 79, 83, 85, 86, 91, 103, 104, Gray, Alastair 108, 169, 175, 179, 188, 211–12, Lanark 221 215, 230–1, 262, 263, 264 Greaney, Michael 256 Homer 44, 259 Green, James 183, 192–3, 202, 209, homosexuality 53, 171, 174, 227 213, 252 Hong Kingston, Maxine 29 Green, Jeremy 36, 45, 255 horror 8, 16, 64, 65, 82, 85, 86, 95, Gregory, Sinda 88, 109, 224, 261 116, 120, 122–5, 135, 139, 143–5, Groß, Florian 153 200 Guattari, Félix 225 Horstkotte, Martin 54, 70, 184 Houdini, Harry 159, 172 Habermas, Jürgen 30, 248 Huber, Irmtraud 117, 130, 257, Hansen, Mark B. N. 110, 183 263 happiness 103, 134–5, 206, 227, Huggan, Graham 257 246–8 humanism 49, 75, 83, 90, 170, 187, happy ending 88, 91, 112, 140, 146, 259 212, 236, 242–3 Hume, Kathryn 10, 255 Hardt, Michael 251–3 Hutcheon, Linda 2, 44, 114, 120, Harper’s Magazine 6 158, 168, 218, 220, 262 Harpham, Geoffrey Galt 211 hyperbole 61, 157, 207

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284 Index hypercapitalism 5, 183, 246, 247, irrationality 53, 174 248, 253 Iser, Wolfgang 13, 16, 55, 66–72, 73, hypermodernity 194, 266 109–10, 159, 165, 177–80, 207, hyperreality 181, 183, 196–7, 219, 221, 223 212–13, 265 isolation 49, 98–100, 108, 125, 138, hypostasis 166–7, 263 172, 174–5, 178, 211–12, 218, 222, 234, 238, 240, 249 Icarus 262 identity 14, 102, 114, 186, 211–13, Jackson, Rosemary 7, 52, 53, 60, 68, 225–6, 228, 231, 239, 242, 245, 82, 87, 167, 168 249, 250–2, 258 James, Henry construction of 31, 130–1, 190, The Turn of the Screw 56, 59 195–6, 204–6, 213, 237, 240, 244 James, William 12 illumination 93, 136–7, 140, 143, Jameson, Fredric 2, 12, 168, 183, 147, 163, 230 200, 217, 242, 245–6, 256, 259, illusion 56–7, 159–60, 165, 167, 260, 264 169–70, 191, 197–8, 204, 206, Japan 62, 192, 203, 204–5, 208, 265 211, 221 Jeffers, Thomas L. 254, 264 imaginary, the 66, 132–3, 159, 167, Johnson, B. S. 224 171, 172, 206, 207, 210, 223 Johnson, Denis 25 and the real 13–14, 16, 55, 66–8, journey 99, 115–16, 136, 142, 181, 69–72, 102, 109–10, 117, 119, 215, 262 165, 175, 177, 180, 183–4, 189, 190–1, 194, 201, 207, 218–19, Kafka, Franz 57–9, 185 261, 265 “Metamorphosis” 58 imitatio 9 Kahn, E. J. 156 India 61, 260, 263 Kant, Immanuel 241 individuality 27, 30, 43, 49, 97, 107, Kelly, Adam 6, 34–5, 45, 46, 258 192, 195–6, 206, 221–2, 231–2, Kirby, Alan 25, 38, 41–4, 45, 259 240–51, 253–4, 257, 258 Klepper, Martin 259 infantilism 42–4, 52 Kluwick, Ursula 10 innocence 23, 25, 114, 120, 135, Krauss, Nicole 18, 237, 240 154, 168, 170–1 The History of Love 18, 233–5 intention 69, 177, 227, 239 Kreuzer, Stefanie 51 intentionality 9, 68, 69–70 Kubrick, Stanley 224 interaction 8, 13, 16, 42, 108–9, 118, Künstlerroman 245 180, 256, 262 intermediality 107 labyrinth 28, 79–80, 86, 88, 93, 100, internet 41, 108 106–7, 111–12, 220, 261, 262 interpretation 9, 45, 47, 56–8, 62–3, Lacan, Jacques 49, 63, 169, 183 65, 67, 70, 72, 74, 82, 84, 87–91, Langland, Elizabeth 240 93, 94–5, 97, 102, 105, 107–9, language 23, 25, 26, 28, 50, 51, 117, 220 80–1, 83–5, 106, 122, 133, 137, intertextuality 107, 184 166–7, 185, 187, 191, 200–2, 248 intrusion see fantastic intrusion language games 25, 200, 202 irony 4–5, 23–4, 28–30, 32, 35, 38, Lanzmann, Claude 144, 146 42–3, 45, 46, 54, 88, 116, 122, Lappin, Tom 115 123, 124–5, 127, 137, 140, 151, Latin America 121, 263 152, 163, 168, 187, 217, 258 law 24, 49, 57

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Lee, Stan 155 marvellous, the 7, 8, 17, 40, 52–4, legends 111, 115, 156, 164 62, 92, 148–9, 151–3, 156, 158, Lévinas, Emmanuel 223 161–2, 169, 172, 175, 178–9, 200, Lewis, C. S. 207, 234, 235–6, 238, 260 The Chronicles of Narnia 43 and the mimetic 8–10, 13, 15, 17, Leyner, Mark 51–2, 56, 59–60, 62–3, 66, 68–74, The Tetherballs of Bougainville 29 102, 113, 115, 119, 145, 151, 166, Leypoldt, Günter 29 168, 179–80, 187, 200, 202–7, light 82, 86, 88–90, 91, 93, 95, 106, 217–18, 256, 259, 260, 261 112, 137, 230 and the uncanny 56–8, 199 linguistics 13, 70 Mason, Fran 184 see also language materiality 68, 80–1, 83, 85, 93, 96, Lipovetsky, Gilles 255, 266 105, 108, 130–4, 200, 202 Lissitzky, El 84 Matrix, The 221 literary field 1, 35, 52–3, 223–4, maturation 15–6, 43–4, 97, 102, 146, 260 172, 183, 186, 204, 206, 211, 213, London 1, 28 225–8, 230–2, 240, 241–4, 246–7, loneliness 36, 97, 98, 105, 160, 174, 249–50, 252, 257 195, 233–4, 237 see also coming of age López, José 255 McCaffery, Larry 88, 109, 224, 261 loss 22, 63, 65, 97–8, 105, 116, 118, McCarthy, Tom 127, 129, 134–9, 150, 152, 154, Remainder 257 168–9, 175, 178, 185, 193–4, 195, McGurl, Mark 258 205, 208, 222, 226, 228, 233, 234, McHale, Brian 15, 52, 57–61, 73, 244, 262 156–7, 184–5, 260 love 16, 35, 49, 64, 86, 88–91, 95, McLaughlin, Robert L. 2, 26, 30, 98, 100, 104, 118, 124–5, 127, 46, 50 133–9, 145–7, 178–9, 185, 210, meaning 27, 80–3, 86, 101, 105, 215, 229–31, 234, 238, 248, 253 132, 150, 186, 189, 194, 203–6, Lukács, György 164 210–11, 215, 228, 229, 246–9, Lynch, David 29 253 Lyotard, Jean-François 114 communication of 15, 28, 36–7, 43, 48, 65, 79, 94, 101, 116, 218, MacCarthy, Desmond F. 232 247–8 magic 9, 53, 150, 160, 169, 178, 179, creation of 9, 15, 26, 49, 84–5, 193, 206, 238 89–91, 93–8, 100, 102, 106, 108, magic realism 8, 10, 13, 17, 59, 61, 110–11, 114, 132, 134, 146, 151, 115–26, 127, 130, 145, 148, 182, 213, 216, 221–3, 226–8, 232, 239, 194, 261, 262, 263, 265 243–4 Mallarmé, Stéphane 224 deferral of 51, 65, 79–81, 88, 99, Maltby, Paul 5 107, 110, 140, 166, 169, 183, 192, Mantel, Hilary 233 212–14, 220, 223, 257 marginality 1, 28, 52–4, 84, 107, derestriction of 13, 15, 51, 67–72, 110, 119, 149, 251, 257, 260 140 Márquez, Gabriel García media 33, 36, 41–2, 94, 153, 162, 165, One Hundred Years of Solitude 118, 167–8, 190, 192, 194–5, 258–9 120–6, 262, 263 Melley, Timothey 184 Martel, Yann Melville, Herman Life of Pi 13, 61–5, 153, 261 Moby Dick 154, 263

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286 Index memory 122, 127, 130–3, 139, 169, morality 44, 64, 118, 139, 171, 173, 188, 193–4, 215, 229, 232 198, 225 metadiegesis see embedded narrative Moretti, Franco 240–1, 246–50, metafiction 13–14, 26, 30, 33–4, 265–6 101, 106, 109–10, 125, 136, 139, Morrison, Toni 29, 257 162, 184, 187, 197, 202, 207, 209, mother 97–9, 101, 104–5, 125, 130, 213, 219–21, 234, 242, 262 152, 175, 188, 194, 202, 214, 228, historiographic metafiction 229, 230, 232–3, 234, 240, 242, 114–15, 120, 158–9, 184 264 metalepsis 21–2, 33, 65, 91, 107, compare father; family; grandfather; 142, 184, 217, 234 grandmother; son metamorphosis 59, 246 multiplicity 13, 22, 39, 69, 74, 79, metaphor 52, 61, 81, 89, 166, 174, 107, 109, 127, 141, 184, 221, 230, 200, 201, 255 234, 235, 238, 242, 261 metonymy 166 Myers, Brian 113–4 MFA programmes 258 Myers, D. G. 152 Millard, Kenneth 215, 243 myths 4, 83, 104, 111, 119, 121–2, millennium 7, 233, 237, 256 127, 193–4, 205, 208, 228, 262, mimesis 8–9, 13, 14, 17, 22–3, 25–7, 265, 266 29–30, 37, 43–4, 47–8, 51, 54–5, mythopoeic 44, 127, 225 58, 62–3, 67, 73–4, 110, 113, 115–16, 145, 148–52, 155–63, Nabokov, Vladimir 165–6, 177, 179–80, 182, 189, Pale Fire 217 192, 198–200, 202, 203–7, 213, naïveté 15–6, 23–5, 33, 35, 38, 42–3, 216–19, 234–5, 238, 258, 260 74, 117, 135, 142, 149, 159, mimetic illusion 156, 165, 194 168–70, 194 mimetic referentiality 40, 116, narrative 132, 156, 198, 217, 219, 260 authority 79, 107, 141 and the marvellous see marvellous, conventions 26, 110 the levels 21, 39, 55, 71, 74, 79, 86, Minden, Michael 223 91–5, 98, 100, 102, 106–9, 118, Minos 229 142, 156, 161–2, 184, 187, 230, Minotaur 8, 228, 261, 262 235, 238 miracle 88, 105, 111, 119, 122, 125, master narrative 46, 114, 170, 251 130, 133, 136, 171, 178–9, 194 perspective 104, 116, 124–5, 150, mise en abyme 68, 72, 91, 106, 131, 161, 186, 200, 203, 205, 261, 265 138, 159, 181, 182, 184, 218, 244 structure 11, 15, 54, 61, 79, 102–3, see also Chinese-box structure; 105, 115–16, 118, 142, 163, 184, embedded narrative 217 Mitchell, David 224 tone 61, 101, 119–20, 123–4, 127, Cloud Atlas 210 154 number9dream 8, 14, 16–18, voice 26–27, 34, 61, 101–6, 107, 181–214, 215, 217–18, 222, 228, 116, 122–5, 139, 141, 148, 150, 232, 243–4, 265 154, 159, 191–3, 203, 213, 238, modernism 3–4, 6, 18, 27, 30, 45, 244 47, 51, 54, 176, 221, 224, 241–2, frame see frame 245–6, 250–1, 259, 265–6 responsibility see responsibility modernity 30, 224, 246–7, 249–50 nation 4, 5, 250–3, 257, 263 Moore, Lorrie 29 nationalism 170

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Nealon, Jeffrey T. 36, 266 origin 28–9, 49, 82, 111, 101, 118, Negri, Antonio 251–3, 266 127–8, 136, 161–2, 196, 204, 208, neoliberalism 5, 221, 248 209, 216, 242, 243, 257 neo-pragmatism 12 orphan 129–30, 196, 210, 226 neo-realism 6, 24–31, 36, 42–3, 45, other, the 28, 34–5, 52–4, 67, 72, 53–4, 214, 257–8 89–90, 100, 102, 106, 107, 109, network 223, 232, 240, 251–2, 258, 125, 151, 223 259 fantastic 87 new journalism 8 see also alterity new media 41, 258 New Puritans 25 Palmeri, Frank 183 New York City 148, 150, 152, 154, panfictionalisation 183, 217 164, 165, 173, 175 paranoia 24, 49, 97, 181, 183–5, Nicol, Bran 3 213, 264 nihilism 23, 47–8, 79–94, 100–1, paranormal 57–9, 260 105–6, 108, 110–11, 113, 151, paratextuality 55, 71, 104 158, 183, 186, 187, 229, 261 parody 23, 182, 188, 217–8, 238, non-fiction 8, 182 242 Norberg-Schulz, Christian 83–4, 111 past, the 16, 79, 98–9, 102, 114–21, nostalgia 121, 148, 150, 152, 154–5, 126–7, 131–3, 139, 143–6, 150, 166–71, 176, 225–6, 227–8, 252, 155, 158, 168, 170, 193–4, 204, 257, 263 205, 230–1, 242, 244, 249, 252, 263, 264, 266 O’Neill, Joseph 257 pastiche 182, 190, 217 Netherland 28 Patai, Raphael 164 objectivity 8, 14, 27, 83, 92, 94, 159, Pearl Harbor 156 236 Peirce, Charles Sanders 12 Oedipus complex 4, 46, 223–5 performatism 37–9, 45, 258 Okri, Ben performativity 63, 212–13 The Famished Road 253 periodisation 3, 44 Olsen, Lance 10, 29, 52, 53–4, 60, personification 129, 171, 224, 74, 125, 261 263 omniscient 27, 119, 150, 157 pessimism 36, 41, 65, 81, 85–6, 99, ontological 113, 133, 183, 196, 262 boundaries 17, 21, 73–4, 114, Petrie, Windy Counsell 149, 154, 156–7, 186–7, 189, 234, 235 157, 159, 166–7 claims 10, 39, 48, 54, 208, 243, philosophy 1, 3, 12, 16, 21, 26, 65, 247 80, 82, 84–5, 91, 114, 167, 169, concerns 11–12, 33, 55, 61, 79, 91, 225, 235, 242, 255, 263 102, 185, 213, 218–19, 252, 265 photography 86, 89–91, 94, 106, indifference 110, 182, 184, 186 111–12, 126, 202, 229, 231 questions 11, 15, 17, 40, 49, 56, Picone, Jason 191 58–9, 65, 74, 93, 97, 105, 119, place 27–9, 80, 82, 90, 122, 126, 149, 158, 180, 181–2, 184, 186–7, 170, 185, 252 190–1, 194, 199, 215, 234 playfulness 16, 29, 30, 115–16, structure 58–61, 149, 162, 199 127, 141, 151, 162, 182, 184, optimism 5, 24, 33, 36, 38, 44, 200–3 64, 85, 111, 113, 116, 118, 137, pleasure 10, 36, 52, 160–1, 176, 178, 146–7, 150, 210, 216, 222, 236 185, 201

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288 Index plot 37, 49, 54, 63, 85, 86–8, 91, presence 1, 13, 15, 32, 56, 57, 58, 92–3, 108, 118, 130, 148, 151, 64, 65, 69–70, 86–7, 91, 99, 103, 156, 158, 161, 163–4, 186, 110, 129, 136, 142, 145, 152, 192, 189–90, 195, 199, 206, 210, 211, 196, 203, 204, 219, 226, 227–8, 216, 223, 232, 234, 248–50, 252, 230, 231, 258, 260 264 present, the 16, 132–3, 143–4, 146, politics 2, 4, 5, 25, 32, 53, 67, 72, 150, 161, 183, 191, 194, 202, 115, 120, 149, 152, 164, 174, 187, 205–6, 221, 225, 231, 242–3, 263 218, 225, 236, 245, 247, 252–3, prison narratives 27 255, 258, 264 progress 4, 91, 250–1 Poole, Steve 195, 201 Proulx, E. Annie 24 Portugal 261 Punday, Daniel 153, 155, 168, 263 Posadas, Baryon Tensor 192, 265 Pynchon, Thomas 117, 259 possible worlds 22 postcolonialism 53, 119, 251, 257, quest 65, 113, 181, 189, 201, 203, 263, 266 206, 211–12, 215, 226, 228, 244, postmodernism 15–17, 21, 58, 264 63–5, 73, 75, 79–89, 91–4, 96–7, 99–101, 109–10, 112, 113–17, Rabkin, Eric S. 60, 70 120, 127, 140, 148–9, 157–60, rationality 49, 53, 56–7, 95, 120, 168–70, 177, 181–7, 211–14, 174, 248 215–26, 233–9, 241–3, 245, reader 8, 11, 17, 25, 32–3, 34–5, 247–8, 251–3, 255, 256, 257, 258, 36, 39, 40–3, 46, 55–9, 63–4, 67, 259, 262, 264, 266 71–2, 74, 98–9, 102, 103, 105–8, definitions of 2, 14–15 111, 120, 125, 137–8, 140, 144–5, end of 1–7, 11, 18, 21–50 147, 150, 157, 160, 176, 184, institutionalisation of 3, 5 186–7, 191–3, 201–3, 207–10, oppositional stance of 3–4 220–2, 244, 260 and metafiction see metafiction reader expectation 9, 12, 21, 199, and nihilism see nihilism 218 and scepticism see scepticism reading 9, 34, 42, 55–9, 64–5, 67, and subversion see subversion 85, 100–1, 105–8, 115, 137–8, postmodernity 18, 187, 255 146, 175–6, 185, 192, 200–4, 208, post-postmodernism 2, 21, 26, 31–3, 220–1, 244, 259, 260, 261, 264 36, 45–6, 50, 258 real, the 10, 52, 66, 110, 176, 204–5, poststructuralism 14, 80–6, 99–100, 225, 265 232, 237 ‘apparently real’ 42–3 Potolsky, Matthew 256 inaccessibility of 6, 15, 63–5, 126, Potter, Garry 255 168, 179, 183, 222 Powers, Richard 29 return to 6, 28, 32, 105, 190, 196, pragmatic 214, 216–8 aspects 11–13, 33, 37–9, 49, 55–6, and the imaginary see imaginary 58–61, 65, 74, 82, 91, 93, 95, 97, realism 8–9, 47, 51–2, 54–5, 65, 102, 106, 110, 112, 149, 152, 182, 86, 105, 148–9, 153–71, 176–7, 189, 219, 221, 223, 232, 247–8, 206–7, 218, 250, 256, 257, 258, 252–4 259, 260, 263 questions 14–15, 40, 59, 74, 79, anti-realism see anti-realism 93, 139, 166, 184, 215, 234, 238 ‘lyrical realism’ 28, 257 Prague 150, 152, 156, 172, 179 magic realism see magic realism

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Index 289

neo-realism see neo-realism of fiction 15–17, 22, 25, 49, 55, return to 5–7, 11, 18, 22–40, 41–2, 72, 74–5, 106, 113, 118, 127, 44, 47–8, 51, 54, 155, 166, 170, 145, 149, 153–4, 181–3, 199, 210, 179, 182, 216–17 218–20 ‘white trash’ realism 27 revenge 152, 173, 193 compare real, return to revolt 224, 226–7 Rebein, Robert 6, 23, 24–30, 32, 45, revolution 4, 24, 41, 196, 248, 253 166, 255, 258 rhizomatic 251 reconciliation 2, 10, 30, 69, 82, Ribbat, Christoph 149, 265 98–101, 105, 108, 111, 115, 131, Richter, Virginia 257 134, 143, 154, 155, 187, 188, 206, Robinson, Marilynne 24 225–30, 232–3, 236, 242, 248, Roosevelt, Eleanor 155 253, 256, 262 Rorty, Richard 12 reconstruction 7, 11, 14–16, 18, 24, Roth, Philip 258 34, 47–50, 65, 72–5, 79, 83, 85–6, Rowling, J. K. 89, 91, 96–7, 101, 106, 110–12, Harry Potter 43 113–16, 118, 146–7, 158, 181, Roy, Arundhati 184, 187–8, 211, 213–14, 215–26, The God of Small Things 265 232–3, 235–6, 239–41, 243–4, Rushdie, Salman 247–8, 252–4, 256, 259, 264 Midnight’s Children 59, 61, 242, redemption 91, 103, 108, 165, 178, 253, 262, 263 212 Satanic Verses 118 Redfield, Marc 257 Ryan, Judith 14, 256 Redpath, Phil 40 referentiality 8, 14, 28–30, 34, 37–8, Saintsbury, George 156 40, 43, 48, 51–2, 56, 68–70, 116, Saldívar, Ramón 6 119, 132, 145, 156, 158, 166–9, Sánchez-Acre, Anna María 257 198, 202, 216–19, 260 satire 218, 262 regionalism 27 scepticism 4–5, 15–16, 18, 24, 29, regression 23, 37, 40, 250 38, 42, 62–4, 114, 116, 145, Reisz, Matthew J. 115 169–70, 193, 221, 234–5, 237 relation schizophrenia 225 intersubjective 22, 28, 34, 35, 90, Scholes, Robert 158, 159 99, 106, 151, 160–1, 179, 222–3, Schröder, Nicole 232 228–32, 240–1, 246, 253, 257 Schweighauser, Philipp 67, 259 subject-object 35, 83–4 science 49, 51, 53, 61, 94, 253 text-world 9, 17, 38, 40, 52, natural sciences 83–4, 86, 178, 59–60, 65–7, 69–70, 73, 110, 192 120, 154, 160, 167–8, 177, 189, science fiction 8, 236 219–20 Second World War 114, 195, 203 religion 37, 64, 83–4, 101, 119, 131, Seita, Sophie 257 245, 252, 255 self, the 18, 31, 35, 67, 85, 87, 90, remainder 62, 170, 189 102, 109, 146, 198, 213, 221, renewalism 30–2, 37, 45 242–5, 249, 251–2, 258 repetition compulsion 99 self-knowledge 97, 102, 138, 204, responsibility 15, 34–5, 41, 48, 65, 212, 242, 244–5 88–9, 106, 124, 143–4, 146, 160, compare other, the 174, 178–9, 182, 215, 220, 231–2, self-referentiality 33, 131, 219 236, 240, 242–4, 247, 253 self-reflexivity 5, 159, 189, 220

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290 Index shtetl 8, 114–17, 119–33, 135–9, Su, John J. 263 142–3, 145, 150, 262 subject, the 31, 35, 48, 67, 168, 170, Siebers, Tobin 171 184, 232, 239, 242–3 Sim, Stuart 3, 255 fragmentation of 6, 239, 251 Simpson, Kathryn 187, 196, 198, subjectivity 27, 83–4, 120, 242, 204, 210–13 255 simulacra 14, 183, 195, 204, 213, see also self, the 265 subversion 1, 4–7, 10. 14, 16, 23–4, simulation 14, 110, 183 36, 53–4, 67, 70, 72, 74–5, 97, Sinbad 62, 265 113, 116–19, 181, 183–4, 187, sincerity 6, 23–4, 26–7, 33–4, 43, 45, 215, 223, 225, 233, 235, 252–3, 46, 56, 92, 98, 139, 145, 160, 166, 257, 262, 263 193, 203, 217–18, 220 superhero 8, 17, 43, 148, 150–5, Singer, Marc 153, 166–7, 174, 263 161, 163–4, 166–7, 171–3, 176–8, Slemon, Stephen 260 217–18, 219, 227, 244, 252 Slocombe, Will 81–2, 84–5, 90, 108, supernatural 9–10, 17, 55–7, 59–60, 112 95, 105, 157, 212 Smith, Alfred E. 156 surrealism 164, 183, 186, 198, 211 Smith, Ali 233, 235 Swales, Martin 241 Smith, Zadie 28, 233, 257 Sybil of Cumae 104, 262 social framework 251 sympathy 17, 236, 261 society 5, 7, 41, 50, 167, 171, 191, 211, 215, 240–2, 244–6, 249–51, tall tale 115 258, 263 technology 5, 41–2, 87, 192, 246, solipsism 31, 35, 46, 48, 49, 79, 82, 258 84, 87–90, 108, 146, 181, 183, teleology 4, 25, 45 186, 218, 221, 232, 242 testimonial 22, 115, 124, 128–9, son 99, 103–5, 125, 174, 179, 228–9, 137, 145, 236 223, 230, 234 textuality 39, 114, 182, 202 compare family; father; grandfather; The New Yorker 156 grandmother; mother theory 13 Sontag, Susan 80 conspiracy 184, 193 spectrality 6, 30–1, 45–6, 233, 255 cultural/literary 2, 6, 14, 52–3, 75, Spiderman 43 80–3, 88 110, 215, 237–9, 251, Star Wars 43 256 Stendhal 9 of the fantastic 12, 55–61, 260 Sterne, Lawrence 224 of the fictive 13, 55, 66–8 Tristram Shandy 188 Thomas, Bronwen 262 Stewart, Susan 168 Timmer, Nicoline 6, 31–3, 35, 43, Stierstorfer, Klaus 29 232 structure 1, 3–4, 6, 7, 80–1, 84, 107, Todorov, Tzvetan 13, 55–60, 68, 92, 110, 183, 187, 225–6, 231–2, 247, 95, 167, 192, 199, 260 249, 251–3 Toffler, Alvin 266 social 183, 225–6, 231, 249, 251–3 Tokyo 181, 183, 186, 188, 190–2, narrative see narrative 193–7, 206, 209, 211, 212, 244, Stuckists 25 265 style 1, 9, 25, 28–9, 32, 80, 121, 124, Tolan, Fiona 7 137, 141, 148–50, 154, 191, 202, Tolkien, J.R.R. 260 216, 234, 265 The Lord of the Rings 43, 53, 259

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Toth, Josh 25, 29–32, 37, 45–6, 255, van den Akker, Robin 35 258 Vergil Trachimbrod 114–20, 121–4, 125–7, Æneid 104, 262 129, 130–3, 134–8, 139, 140–2, verisimilitude 9, 11, 52, 54, 65, 144–5, 146, 148, 151, 231, 233, 72–3, 156, 160, 162, 260 263 Vermeulen, Timotheus 35 Traill, Nancy Helen 255, 256, 260 Versluys, Kristiaan 25, 257, 260 transcendence 3–4, 37, 45, 53, 71, Victoria and Albert Museum 1, 4, 7 101, 109, 152, 153, 210, 230, Victorianism 27, 259 235 video games 8, 54, 192, 194–9, 205, transgression 5, 52–3, 65, 67–70, 264 72–3, 144, 157–8, 182, 217–8, Virginia, USA 86 222, 234, 237 virtual reality 192, 195–7, 264 trauma 14, 97–102, 116, 151, 153–4, Vollmann, William T. 25–6 176, 181, 188, 214, 226, 229–30, 242, 244, 262, 263 Wallace, David Foster 29, 33, 38, 46 travelogue 8, 115–16, 142, 182 “E Unibus Pluram” 4–5, 23–4, 255 tribalism 27 Infinite Jest 31 Trilling, Lionel 34 “Octet” 34–5 trompe-l’œil 184, 190 Watt, Ian 160 Truffaut, François 224 Waugh, Patricia 187, 218, 219, 262 truth 134–6, 170, 204, 210, 230, Web 2.0 42–3 244, 253, 255 Weese, Katherine J. 260 claims 26–7, 40, 43, 51, 55, 63–4, Welch, James 27 71, 73–4, 94, 116, 148, 158, 205 Welles, Orson 155–6, 224 and communication 12, 33–5, 49, Williams, Jeffrey 55, 95, 189 94, 248 Williamson, Edwin 120 elusiveness of 6, 15–16, 37, 64, 93, Wilson, Leigh 185, 224, 264, 265 105, 114, 215, 223, 236 Wolf, Werner 73 in representation 14, 16, 33, 36, Wolfe, Gary K. 255 51, 55, 86, 92, 125, 139–40, 143, Wolfe, Tom 26, 29 149–50, 159–60, 213, 235 Wolf-Meyer, Matthew 47 World Fair 170 UFO 92 writing 8, 35, 49, 80–1, 85, 92, Ukraine 8, 115, 116, 141, 142 100–1, 104, 113–6, 120, 122, 125, uncanny, the 56–9, 68, 83, 95, 97, 126, 142–3, 146–7, 160, 176, 106, 192, 199, 261 200–3, 207–9, 220, 236–7, 239, uncertainty 9, 17, 46, 49, 57–8, 79, 244, 258, 265 106, 111, 126–31, 172, 182–3, 187, 190, 191–2, 199–200, 202, Yggdrasil 104, 111 204, 210–11, 236, 242, 244, youth 97, 103, 149–50, 168, 170, 258 172, 175, 191, 195, 223–4, 227, unreliability 16, 87, 94, 96, 116, 230–2, 244, 249–51, 254, 257 128, 130, 139, 184, 192–3, 219, see also adolesence 234 USA see America Zalewski, Daniel 191 utopia 4, 35, 49–50, 170–1, 178, Zeuxis 8 245, 253, 258, 263 Zima, Peter V. 245

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