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Music and Identity in Postcolonial British South-Asian Literature

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Music and Identity in Postcolonial British South-Asian Literature Music and Identity in Postcolonial British South-Asian Literature This book examines the role of music in British-South Asian postcolonial literature, asking how music relates to the construction of postcolonial iden- tity. It focuses on novels that explore the postcolonial condition in India, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom: Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy, Amit Chaudhuri’s Afternoon Raag, Suhayl Saadi’s Psychoraag, Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia and The Black Album, and Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet, with reference to other texts, such as E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India and Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music. The ana- lyzed novels feature diff erent kinds of music, from Indian classical to non- classical traditions, and from Western classical music to pop music and rock ‘n’ roll. Music is depicted as a cultural artifact and as a purely aestheticized art form at the same time. As a cultural artifact, music derives meaning from its socio-cultural context of production and serves as a frame of refer- ence to explore postcolonial identities on their own terms. As purely aes- thetic art, music escapes its contextual meaning. The transgressive qualities of music render it capable of expressing identities irrespective of origin and politics of location. Thereby, music in the novels marks a very productive space to imagine the postcolonial nation and to rewrite imperial history, to express the cultural hybridity of characters in-between nations, to analyze the state of the nation and life in the multicultural diaspora of contempo- rary Great Britain, and to explore the ramifi cations of cultural globaliza- tion versus cultural imperialism. It will be a useful research and teaching tool for those interested in postcolonial literature, music studies, cultural studies, contemporary literature and South-Asian literature. Christin Hoene is Assistant Lecturer of English Literature at Humboldt University Berlin, Germany and University of Potsdam, Germany. Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature 1 Environmental Criticism for the 9 Wallace Stevens and Twenty-First Century Pre-Socratic Philosophy Edited by Stephanie LeMenager, Metaphysics and the Play Teresa Shewry, and Ken Hiltner of Violence Daniel Tompsett 2 Theoretical Perspectives on Human Rights and Literature 10 Modern Orthodoxies Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg and Judaic Imaginative Journeys Alexandra Schultheis Moore of the Twentieth Century Lisa Mulman 3 Resistance to Science in Contemporary American Poetry 11 Eugenics, Literature, and Bryan Walpert Culture in Post-war Britain Clare Hanson 4 Magic, Science, and Empire in Postcolonial Literature 12 Postcolonial Readings of Music The Alchemical Literary in World Literature Imagination Turning Empire on Its Ear Kathleen J. Renk Cameron Fae Bushnell 5 The Black Female Body in 13 Stanley Cavell, Literature, American Literature and Art and Film Performing Identity The Idea of America Caroline A. Brown Edited by Andrew Taylor and Áine Kelly 6 Narratives of Migration and Displacement in Dominican 14 William Blake and the Digital Literature Humanities Danny Méndez Collaboration, Participation, and Social Media 7 The Cinema and the Origins of Jason Whittaker and Literary Modernism Roger Whitson Andrew Shail 15 American Studies, Ecocriticism, 8 The Gothic in Contemporary and Citizenship Literature and Popular Culture Thinking and Acting in the Local Pop Goth and Global Commons Edited by Justin D. Edwards and Edited by Joni Adamson and Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet Kimberly N. Ruffi n 16 International Perspectives on 26 Trauma in Contemporary Feminist Ecocriticism Literature Edited by Greta Gaard, Simon C. Narrative and Representation Estok, and Serpil Oppermann Edited by Marita Nadal and Mónica Calvo 17 Feminist Theory across Disciplines Feminist Community and 27 Contemporary Trauma Narratives American Women’s Poetry Liminality and the Ethics of Form Shira Wolosky Edited by Susana Onega and Jean-Michel Ganteau 18 Mobile Narratives Travel, Migration, and 28 The Future of Testimony Transculturation Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Edited by Eleftheria Arapoglou, Witnessing Mónika Fodor, and Jopi Nyman Edited by Jane Kilby and Antony Rowland 19 Shipwreck in Art and Literature Images and Interpretations from 29 Literature and the Glocal City Antiquity to the Present Day Reshaping the English Canadian Edited by Carl Thompson Imaginary Edited by Ana María Fraile-Marcos 20 Literature, Speech Disorders, and Disability 30 Apocalyptic Discourse in Talking Normal Contemporary Culture Edited by Chris Eagle Post-Millennial Perspectives of the End of the World 21 The Unnameable Monster in Edited by Monica Germanà and Literature and Film Aris Mousoutzanis Maria Beville 31 Rethinking Empathy through 22 Cognition, Literature and History Literature Edited by Mark J. Bruhn and Edited by Meghan Marie Donald R. Wehrs Hammond and Sue J. Kim 23 Community and Culture in 32 Music and Identity in Postcolonial Post-Soviet Cuba British South-Asian Literature Guillermina De Ferrari Christin Hoene 24 Class and the Making of American Literature Created Unequal Edited by Andrew Lawson 25 Narrative Space and Time Representing Impossible Topologies in Literature Elana Gomel This page intentionally left blank Music and Identity in Postcolonial British South-Asian Literature Christin Hoene NEW YORK LONDON First published 2015 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Taylor & Francis The right of Christin Hoene to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hoene, Christin. Music and Identity in Postcolonial British South-Asian Literature / Christin Hoene. pages cm. — (Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature ; 32) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. South Asian fiction (English)—History and criticism. 2. Music in literature. 3. Identity (Philosophical concept) in literature. 4. Postcolonialism in literature. I. Title. PR9570.S64H64 2015 820.9'954—dc23 2014008840 ISBN13: 978-1-138-77736-1 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-1-315-77268-4 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by IBT Global. Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Notes on Music in Postcolonial Literature 1 1 Singing the Nation 15 2 (Dis)locating Identity 51 3 Performing ‘Englishness’ 85 4 Music, Magical Realism, and Globalization 116 Conclusion: Sounding Together 148 Index 163 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments First and foremost, to Peter Dayan and Aaron Kelly my most heartfelt and sincere gratitude. They have supported this project every step of the way with their generous supply of time, advice, and intellectual stimulation. To Michelle Keown and Stephen Benson, I am thankful for their astute advice and sincere enthusiasm for the project. More thanks are due to Michelle for her support in preparing the manuscript for publication. On this note, a warm thank you to Emily Petermann, Ellen Grünkemeier, and Hans- Jürgen Grabbe for their encouragement and help with the initial proposal. Special thanks also go to Joshua Wells and Nancy Chen for their enthusi- asm and support that made this book happen, and to Eleanor Chan for her kind support. My most heartfelt thanks to Sarah Stefanski for her insights into classics, the Orpheus myth, and the correct way of citing ancient Greek texts in translation; and for the most thorough and informed proof-reading that I could have wished for (the remaining mistakes remain mine). This project would not have been possible without a scholarship granted by the Stiftung der Deutschen Wirtschaft (Foundation of German Busi- ness), for which I am very grateful. Moreover, travel grants from Edin- burgh University’s School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures enabled my participation at conferences, which signifi cantly shaped the thoughts and ideas expressed in this book. Parts of Chapter Two have been published in revised, edited, and shortened form as “Sounding Through Time and Space: Music in Postcolonial South-Asian Literature” in Time and Space in Words and Music (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2012), edited by Mario Dunkel, Emily Petermann, and Burkhard Sauerwald. I am grateful to the editors and publisher for their permission to reproduce the material here. Extracts from Suhayl Saadi’s novel Psychoraag are reproduced by kind permission from Black & White Publishing and Suhayl Saadi. Extracts from The Buddha of Suburbia and The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi are reproduced by kind permission from Faber & Faber Ltd and Rog- ers, Coleridge and White. Extracts from A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, copyright © Vikram Seth, 1993, are reproduced by kind permission from David Godwin Associates, The Orion Publishing Group, and Vikram Seth. Extracts from THE GROUND BENEATH HER FEET by Salman Rushdie, x Acknowledgments published by Vintage, are reprinted by permission
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