Queer Realities: Twenty-First Century Fiction and the Boundaries of Utopia
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QUEER REALITIES: TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY FICTION AND THE BOUNDARIES OF UTOPIA A Thesis submitted to the FAculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partiAl fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MAsters of Arts in English By Ian M. JAyne, B.A. WAshington, DC MArch 23, 2020 Copyright 2020 by Ian M. JAyne All Rights Reserved ii QUEER REALITIES: TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY FICTION AND THE BOUNDARIES OF UTOPIA Ian M. JAyne, B.A. Thesis Advisor: RicArdo L. Ortiz, Ph.D. ABSTRACT In this thesis, I argue that contemporary forms of AmericAn and British queer reAlism—specificAlly, those focused on gay mAsculinity—Are consistently attenuated by narrative invocAtions of the utopic mode. I analyze AlAn Hollinghurst’s 2004 The Line of Beauty, André AcimAn’s 2007 Call Me by Your Name, and HAnya YAnagihara’s 2015 A Little Life. The backwArd temporal movement in eAch of these novels problemAtizes its textual construction of present and future; consequently, in eAch novel, life itself becomes utopized, a process which beArs upon both the aesthetic qualities of contemporary literary reAlism, and also upon our understAndings of queer lives in and beyond fiction. The contemporary reAlist novel functions as A complicAted portrait of the wAys in which the reAlities of race, gender, clAss position, And sexuality collide with the whims of utopic fantAsy—A collision mArked both by impermAnence and possibility. My criticAl introduction sketches out sAlient debates About literary reAlism’s history through and beyond postmodernism, queer theory’s conceptualizAtions of the “Anti-sociAl” turn and the affective turn, as well as the modulAtions of queer utopiA and queer of color critique. Chapter I Argues that AlAn Hollinghurst’s 2004, MAn Booker-prize winning novel, The Line of Beauty, is fundamentAlly a narrative of fantAsy. By stArting with the novel’s invocAtion of Henry JAmes and its own metA-reAlist emphasis, I suggest the text’s stAtus iii As a rejoinder to the supposedly “hystericAl” reAlisms from which it emerges. I then Argue that the novel’s strategies of narrative focAlizAtion construct homophobic conservatism as An object of sAtire, but that these strategies fail to recognize their reinscription of white gay mAsculinity as the primAry arbiter of queerness. Chapter II examines two iterations of the sAme narrative: André AcimAn’s 2007 novel, Call Me by Your Name, and LucA Guadagnino’s 2017 film adaptAtion of the sAme name. I clAim that both novel and film deploy numerous and contradictory frameworks in depicting the temporalities of queer desire, and that these fluctuating movements across time and space challenge the reAlities of the eArly 1980s in northern ItAly. Within novel and film, cleAr apprehension of a single gay reAlity becomes extremely difficult; consequently, the coextAnt, interlAced, and melodramAtic structures of temporality and affect participate in a MuñoziAn kind of world-mAking which is both predicAted upon and delimited by the plural AporiAs engendered by time and space. Chapter III identifies similAr strains of temporal and Affective surplus in HAnya YAnagihara’s 2015 novel, A Little Life. In this chapter, I suggest that YAnagihara’s fusion of literary naturalism with the fairy tAle narrative constitutes a utopic revision of various raciAl and sexual identitAriAn positions. I argue that A Little Life’s currents of abjection and self-harm are best understood through the textual construction of optimism, and that this affective positionAlity refracts along the novel’s ahistoricism and its temporal vacillAtions. UltimAtely, I suggest, YAnagihara’s novel estAblishes a “reAlity” that is both hypercontextual and self-reflexive. Art—both the novel itself, and the art narrated within its pages—thus become(s) a metAtextual signifier of the perpetual instAllAtion of the utopic within the “reAl”—And the perpetual failures And recurrences of both modalities. iv Acknowledgments This thesis would not have happened without the support and guidance of numerous people. First, I would like to thank the faculty and stAff at Georgetown, whose expertise and patience have been invaluable. My thanks to Professor RicArdo Ortiz for serving as my Advisor, and for his mAny helpful insights about the trajectories of both this project and my future scholArship. I am also especiAlly grateful to my second reAder, Professor Jennifer Fink, whose Queer Memoir seminar helped spark mAny of the inquiries I undertook over the course of this project, and whose words about imAgination have stuck with me. I am thankful to Professor PAtrick O’MAlley for his sAge advice about thesis- writing, and for his feedback on eArly drafts of this work. My thanks also to Professor Lori Merish and Professor Christine So, who, in their graduate seminars, kindly allowed me to work out eArly drafts of what would eventually become parts of this thesis. I would also like to express my gratitude to my clAssmAtes and friends at Georgetown for reAding and commenting on eArly drafts of this work, but Also for their community and fellowship throughout the writing process. MAny thanks to ElizAbeth George for being a fellow Scorpio, for loving pop music with an unmAtched fervor, and for being a wonderful writer and friend. Thanks to Alley Lindner for the conversAtions—recorded And un-recorded—About everything under the sun. SpeciAl thanks to GAbby Deutsch for her influence and greAt advice, for keeping me sAne, and for alwAys being there for me, no mAtter the time zone. My enduring thanks to MAjor ThomAs SchuemAn for his friendship and generosity, for reAding and writing alongside me, and for welcoming me into his tribe. I could not have written this thesis without the support of my community in OklAhomA. My numerous and myriAd thanks to Dr. Cami Agan—for being the model of a teAcher And scholAr I alwAys wish to emulAte, and for her continued support and advice. Thanks to Rose Schaefer, who asked the right question, And, in so doing, changed the arc of my thesis in the best possible wAy. Thanks to Kendall Allen for reminding me that it alwAys comes down to effort, and for alwAys picking up where we left off. Thanks to Hope, HArley, Colton, and MAdison, for their continued friendship and support from afar. Thanks to Mom for loving me and mAking me lAugh, to DAd for passing along his love of school, and to Justin for being the best brother and friend I could have. And, lAst but certAinly not leAst, thanks to Bowie and AjAx for reminding me of the importAnce of long wAlks and treAts. v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 2 Literary ReAlisms: Origins and Evolutions ..................................................................... 5 Queer Spectrums: Anti-sociAlity and Affect ................................................................. 20 Queering UtopiA: ModulAting the Possible, Critiquing the Actual ............................... 27 Queer ReAlities, Utopic Fictions .................................................................................... 35 CHAPTER I: “[I]ncessAnt ImAgining”: The Line Of Beauty’s FAntAsies Of ReAlism ..... 43 “[T]he Rush of Reciprocity”: Race, ClAss, and Actualized Desire ............................... 51 “[B]eing Both English and Exotic”: Lines of Utopic ReAlity ....................................... 63 “[I]ts MessAge of Terror and Exhaustion”: The ReAlities of the AIDS Crisis .............. 71 CHAPTER II: “[O]n Borrowed Time”: Call Me By Your Name And Utopic AporiA ....... 80 “[B]orrowed Time” and UtopiAn Flux .......................................................................... 87 “[M]y ForeverlAnd of Ambiguities”: Queering Queer Union ....................................... 96 “[T]otAlly UnreAl”: The SAn Clemente Syndrome and Utopic Multiplicity ................ 104 “[T]he PermAnent PAst, My Pluperfect Lover”: Utopic Perpetuity ............................. 109 CHAPTER III: “[J]ust One More Thing”: A Little Life And Queer(ed) NAturalism ........ 118 “[A]n Identity to Inhabit”: RaciAl and Sexual DisidentificAtions ................................ 126 “[S]tupid Hope”: Cruel Optimism, Cruel NAturalism ................................................. 134 “[T]heir Own Type of RelAtionship”: Queered HomosociAlity .................................. 141 “[T]he Stuff of Stories”: Queer Endings and Recursive UtopiA .................................. 147 CODA .............................................................................................................................. 154 WORKS CITED .............................................................................................................. 160 vi utopiA, n. [...] A reAl plAce which is perceived or imAgined as perfect. [...] A written work (now esp. a fictional narrative) about an ideAl society, plAce, or stAte of existence. [...] A plAn for or vision of an ideAl society, plAce, or stAte of existence, esp. one that is impossible to reAlize; a fantAsy, a dreAm. —from The Oxford English Dictionary What cAn the possibility of an impossibility be? How cAn we think that? How cAn we say it while respecting logic and meAning? How cAn we approach that, live, or exist it? How does one testify to it? —JAcques Derrida To narrate unhappiness cAn be affirmAtive; it cAn gesture towArd another world, even if we are not given a vision of the world as it might exist after the wAlls of misery are brought down. —SAra Ahmed Utopic in its negativity, queer theory