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The Author's Doppelgänger

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The Author's Doppelgänger THE AUTHOR’S DOPPELGÄNGER: CELEBRITY, CANONICITY, AND THE ANXIETY OF THE LITERARY MARKETPLACE IN THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Jaclyn Partyka July 2016 Examining Committee Members: Sue-Im Lee, Advisory Chair, English Suzanne Gauch, English James F. English, University of Pennsylvania, English Fabienne Darling-Wolf, External Member, Journalism © Copyright 2016 by Jaclyn Partyka All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates how and why contemporary canonical authors such as Vladimir Nabokov, Philip Roth, J.M. Coetzee, and Salman Rushdie incorporate their celebrity and canonical status as authors into the fictional worlds of their novels. The contemporary celebrity author in general is at the mercy of a more globalized publication industry that depends on a circuit of international circulation, translation, and the diverse reactions of a transnational readership. More specifically, each of the authors I focus on in this dissertation have become notorious, both for their professional literary achievements as well as various political or sexual scandals running alongside their publication history. The decentralization of the author’s power to control his own image as it becomes stratified across a multiplicity of competing discourses, audiences, and marketplaces is spurred on by a literary marketplace that favors world literature, international circulation, and the whims of readership response. Thus, the need to revise or challenge the public perception of their authorship is constantly at stake for these figures – so much so that they introduce doppelgänger versions of themselves into their fiction to negotiate this relationship. I argue that the hybrid-generic form of autobiographical-metafiction allows these authors to integrate this struggle for authority over their own authorship into both the form and content of their fictional worlds. My entrance into the long standing discourse on authorship follows in the wake of contemporary critics such as Seán Burke and Benjamin Widiss who have attempted to revive the author as a relevant interpretive figure within literary scholarship. While much of the early scholarship on authorship, and the death of the author conceit specifically, has been primarily a philosophical inquiry or an opportunity to reorient the authority of iii meaning making towards the reader, more recent scholarship has begun to study the author as a socio-historical phenomenon. I contribute to this discussion by focusing on how authorship has not receded in the face poststructuralism, but instead reasserted itself within the hybrid-generic gesture of autobiographical-metafiction. By joining the related by often bifurcated fields of life writing and narratology, I analyze how the conceit of authorship manifests itself within these author’s fictional worlds. Vladimir Nabokov’s last novel Look at the Harlequins! (1974) manifests the figure of Vadim Vadimovich N. to offer an alternative version of the author’s publication history controversy over Lolita. Philip Roth uses the paratextual space in The Facts: A Novelist’s Autobiography (1988) to dramatize a dialogical encounter with his authorial doppelgänger of Nathan Zuckerman. J.M. Coetzee creates a graphic representation of the multiple interpretations of authorship for his doppelgänger protagonist in A Diary of a Bad Year (2007). Finally, Salman Rushdie’s Joseph Anton: A Memoir (2012) forcefully demonstrates how the authorial doppelgänger operates as a divertive tool within a socio-historical context where the “death” of the author has shifted beyond theory to praxis. Ultimately, the project of tracing different iterations of the doppelgänger novelist across national and historical markers helps us formulate a contemporary theory of authorship that asserts how the “author” must always operate in a liminal space between the constructed fictional world and the real historical world. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Gérard Genette has claimed that there is always a text that comes before the text that helps illuminate and frame the narrative at hand. A dissertation is no different and so I want to thank all of the wonderful people who make up the paratext to this project. My dissertation committee is at the forefront of this frontmatter. Suzanne Gauch introduced me to thinking about narrative across both media and nations and her feedback on writing has been both poignant and practical. James F. English has been both kind and crucially clarifying at the beginning and end stages of this project – I cannot thank him enough for inviting me to participate in the robust intellectual community at the University of Pennsylvania. But most of all, Sue-Im Lee’s ability to process the scattered threads of my inquiry and condense them into astute questions allowed me to see the forest for the trees during critical moments in this process. She has also been a formidable source of both personal guidance and academic support, reminding me often that the human has not been lost within the humanities. The volume of written text I have exchanged with the following individuals should be preserved for posterity. I have been lucky enough to be a part of an email support group that has destroyed the myth of writing a dissertation in isolation. Sara Curnow Wilson, Tiffany DeRewal, Ted Howell, Caitlin Hudgins, and Juliana Rauch have shared both their joys and frustrations while never ceasing to make me laugh. Beth Seltzer is a loyal and generous friend and I could not admire her more. Leslie Allison will always be my work wife and research kraken. Nicole Cesare is a model to emulate. I am incredibly fortunate to call these people my friends and colleagues. v The institutional paratext to this project derives from a number of talented people and academic departments. I am thankful to the faculty and administrators within the Temple University English department for helping me navigate the dissertation process. I am especially thankful to Eli Goldblatt, Rachael Groner, and the rest of the First Year Writing department for keeping me both financially and emotionally afloat during difficult moments and reminding me that teaching is the most important work we do as scholars. Additionally, the final stages of this project would not have been possible without both the academic and financial support from the Center for the Humanities at Temple. Thanks to Priya Joshi, Peter Logan, and Petra Goode for their leadership in this interdisciplinary community and to the seminar fellows for illuminating my work in new ways. Thanks also to Peter Logan, Matt Shoemaker, and Angela Cirucci and the Digital Scholarship Center in Paley Library for supporting me during my foray into digital scholarship. The writing retreats hosted by the Temple University Writing Center have been an invaluable resource; thanks to Lorraine Savage for allowing me to be a constant interloper in this supportive space. Finally, the dissertation completion grant from the Graduate Board of Temple University allowed me to keep the momentum of my scholarship going at a key moment. The unwavering support of Cinde and Edward Partyka make up the biographical paratext of this dissertation. Thank you for encouraging me to think creatively and read voraciously throughout my formative years. Moreover, Megan Partyka has provided continuous motivation while also being my intellectual touchstone for the natural world – I thank her for her insightful perspectives on Nabokov’s lepidoptera early in this project. vi And finally, Joshua Pregnar has been my ultimate paratext – my partner – throughout this process. Thank you for sharing your life with me; I look forward to beginning the next chapter together. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES.................................................................................. ix CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION: THE DOPPELGÄNGER-AUTHOR BETWEEN GENRES ........................................................................................................................1 2. FICTION’S PASSPORT: VLADIMIR NABOKOV’S LOOK AT THE HARLEQUINS! ............................................................................................................30 3. “HE NOT ME”: THE DOUBLED OWNERSHIP OF FICTION IN PHILIP ROTH…………………………………………………………………..…...………..62 4. DUCK OR DUCKOY?: ALLEGORIES OF AUTHORSHIP IN J.M. COETZEE’S LATE FICTION……………………………………………………..101 5. JOSEPH ANTON’S DIGITAL DOPPELGӒNGER: SALMAN RUSHDIE AND THE RHETORIC OF SELF-FASHIONING……….…………………..……138 REFERENCES CITED ....................................................................................................178 viii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table Page 1. Paratextual Chart of Narrative Levels for Look at the Harlequins!…………………………………………….……………..................45 Figures 1. Vladimir Nabokov. Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited……………………………..…..…....................................................... 31 2. Vladimir Nabokov. “I. Other Books By The Narrator,” Look at the Harlequins!……..……......................................................................................... 47 3. Vladimir Nabokov. “BOOKS by Vladimir Nabokov,” Look at the Harlequins!……………………………................................................................49
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