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WRITING FICTION, READING THEORY: A SELF-REFLECTIVE EXPLORATION OF HOW AND WHY I WRITE FICTION, AND THE ROLE OF POLITICS AND THEORY THEREIN A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Guelph by SHANI MOOTOO In partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts September, 2010 ©Shani Mootoo, 2010 Library and Archives Bibliothèque et ?F? Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de l'édition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaONK1A0N4 OttawaONK1A0N4 Canada Canada Yourfíle Votre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-71418-8 Our file Notre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-71418-8 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant à la Bibliothèque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par télécommunication ou par l'Internet, prêter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des thèses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, à des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non- support microforme, papier, électronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriété du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protège cette thèse. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privée, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont été enlevés de thesis. cette thèse. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1+1 Canada ABSTRACT WRITING FICTION, READING THEORY: A SELF-REFLECTIVE EXPLORATION OF HOW AND WHY I WRITE FICTION, AND THE ROLE OF POLITICS AND THEORY THEREIN Shani Mootoo Advisor: University of Guelph, 2010 Dr. Smaro Kamboureli Writing Fiction, Reading Theory is this thesis author's investigation into her creative process of fiction writing. Using contemporary political and social theory to illuminate the practice of writing, this thesis proposes and examines multiple rationales for aesthetic and political choices inherent in the various elements of the writing process. The writer utilizes theoretical work, such as Edward Said's discussion of the responsibility of the intellectual and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari' s notions of the rhizome and assemblage to understand the impetus to write, the methods, and the kinds of issues she chooses to address in her work. This understanding allows and leads to an aesthetic and political validation ofboth impetus and method, as well as the resonances that simultaneously mirror what the writer attempts to say in her work and push beyond a merely theoretical understanding to a moment of creativity that remains ineffable. Acknowledgements Great appreciation is owed to Ashok Mathur and Smaro Kamboureli for encouraging me to turn my dream of doing the Masters Degree in English into a reality. During the course of the year spent working on the Degree at the University of Guelph, several people helped smooth the way. In particular I would like to mention Zaphura Chan, Sarah Declerck, Faye Guenther, and Ramesh Mootoo (Junior). I thoroughly enjoyed studying alongside my fellow students in the Department of English and Theatre Studies and want to thank them for an excellent graduate-student experience. My program could not have happened were it not for the generosity and direction of Mark Fortier, Danny O'Quinn, and Sharon Ballantyne. Thank you, too, to Christine Bold, Elaine Chang, and Sky Gilbert for their instruction over the course of the year and in whose classes, unknown to them even, threads of this thesis were woven. Thank you to the University of Guelph for funding in large part my tenure as a student, through teaching assistantships and bursaries. Not least of all I wish to thank my thesis supervisor Smaro Kamboureli for her guidance and very welcome, and unparalleled, intellect and rigour, committee member Dionne Brand, and the committee advisor chair Janice Kulyk Keefer. Behind it all, always, are Indra and Romesh Mootoo. Thank you, Mummy and Daddy, for your gentle, steady hand at my back. Finally, my deepest thanks go to my first reader Deborah Root who introduced me to Deleuze and Guattari, talked theory with me endlessly, made the coffee and walked the dogs so that I could read and write. i Table of Contents Reading Theory: A Self-reflective Exploration of How and Why I Write Fiction, and the Role of Politics and Theory Therein 1 Writing Fiction: Moving Forward Sideways 22 Works Cited 106 Il Reading Theory: A Self-reflective Exploration of How and Why I Write Fiction, and the Role of Politics and Theory Therein. 1 A book itself is a little machine; what is the relation ... of this literary machine to a war machine, love machine, revolutionary machine, etc—and an abstract machine that sweeps them along? (Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari 4) An assemblage is [an] increase in the dimensions of a multiplicity that necessarily changes in nature as it expands its connections. There are no points or positions in a rhizome, such as those found in a structure, tree, or root. (Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari 8) It is always by rhizome that desire moves and produces. (Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari 14) An essay that offers a theoretical analysis of one's own novel might appear to be oxymoronic, its writer a body with two heads, one that hovers on the edge of existence by constantly resisting interpretation, the other dependent on interpretation. The two are at odds with each other, the creative part a chameleon inventing and reinventing itself in response, even resistance, to the other that appraises, interprets, and analyses. The critic in a constant game of catch-up with its perpetually altering alter-image. The result might well be cacophonous—but we have long ago become accustomed to the musical potential in discord. The writing of this essay, as is also the case with its subject matter and that of the work it analyzes, operates as a rhizomatic network in a machine within a machine, in which other machines operate, all at once surveying, mapping, dreaming, desiring. If Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari 's machine derives from a notion of assemblage—a synthesis of disparate elements ( Deleuze and Guattari 343)- in which some parts fit well and others not, I would like to extend this notion when thinking of the creative process~my own in particular—to imagine that the assemblage, as defined by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, is always in motion, in flux, is favourable to and encouraging of experimentation. The throbbing and the cacophony are at once orgiastic and resisting the paradigms of heteronormative coupling, resisting the drive to prove anything; instead, they express truths that resonate and contradict. Always, all at the same time. II Moving Forward Sideways is the working title of my novel in progress. Because I am the writer of the work I will analyze, it would be disingenuous, if not dishonest, of me to write in a way that is not personal and experiential. In this part of my thesis, I am simultaneously the creative writer-my primary, if not permanent, condition- and my work's critic interpreter, or appraiser. The messiness and interconnectedness of these two-in-one roles, as discussed in this essay, handsomely mirror my larger project as a person in society and as a writer/artist working against the grain. Writing against the grain, against regimes of authority, against heteronormativity in particular, is necessarily multi- valenced and polymorphic. Unidimensional constructs such as queer theory, race, class, and feminist 3 theory have, at times, sought to explain complex social and political phenomena through reference to a single over-determining cause, for instance, "the patriarchy." Such explanations are by definition partial and, I think, crude. For instance, queer theorist—Sally Munt and Judith Halberstam, for instance- has certainly pointed out, in some cases, that aspects of western butch aesthetics and performance of masculinity originate in the Western working class male, but fails to excavate, complicate, and theorize the reasons for this. A more fruitful way of thinking allows for and affirms a multiplicity of influences as exemplified by Deleuze and Guattari's metaphor of the rhizome or root vegetable—different from the taproot- that sends up shoots without a readily recognizable pattern, or logic. Such thinking, such a rhizomatic approach, allows for multiple points of entry, causes, influences, and exits. When, for example, race is understood in terms of class and gender our conception of how race actually functions in society and plays out in peoples' lives is deepened and complicated. If the larger project of my creative work is to undo structures of discursive authority, then these rhizomatic tactics are required in order to open and offer multiple entry points into my creative work. The ebb and flow of, and between, the analytical imperative here and my more instinctual but honed impulse towards creative methods shape the larger project. This is a project in which I am consciously and constantly engaged by way of creating ruptures as entry points into the issues that touch my life deeply, and that are the subject, as well as the raison d'être, of my work and, more specifically here, of the novel at hand.

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