In Formal Contexts:

The Paratextual Features of Historiographic Metafiction

By

Keith Kirouac, B.A.

A Thesis submitted to the Department of English California State University Bakersfield In Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of Masters of English

Fall 2015

Copyright

By

Keith Laurien Kirouac

2015

In Formal Contexts: The Paratextual Features of Historiographic Metafiction

By Keith Kirouac

This thesis or project has been accepted on behalf of the Department of English by their supervisory committee:

D~:*~~Commt ee Chair 16(~~ Dr. Carol Dell'Amico

Acknowledgements

Upon the completion of this thesis project (my death as an author if for no cause other than exhaustion) I would like to thank my readers, Dr. Monica Ayuso and Dr. Carol Dell'Amico, for taking time out of their busy schedules to examine this relatively insignificant work. I am also grateful to Dr. Kim Flachmann, Dr. Charles MacQuarrie, Dr. Susan Stafinbil, Dr. Andrew

Troup, and Christy Gavin for helping to guide me through the research which led to this paper.

Abstract

The Introduction to this thesis defines a number of key terms and concepts related to the study of paratexts in historiographic metafiction. The chapters that follow describe how paratextual forms operate within specific historiographic metafictional novels. The first of these chapters covers the footnotes in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, painting the novel's narrator as a fairly typical historiographer. The second chapter delves into the metafictional elements tied to the appendices which conclude The Lord of the Rings and argues that J.R.R.

Tolkien's reputation as an author and scholar may have influenced the development of that novel.

The third major chapter explains how paratexts are employed to assert authorial identity in

Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography. Finally, the thesis concludes that the aesthetic uses for paratexts are virtually infinite and predicts that the genre of historiographic metafiction will continue to be a favorite among postmodernists.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Few Facts about Fiction 7

Footnotes in a Postmodern Historiography 14

A Text Appended and Another Up-ended 22

A (Very) Intentional Fallacy 36

Conclusion: A Metafactual Review 49

Glossary 52

Works Cited 54

Vita 58

"Historiographic metafiction explicitly contests the presumptive power of history to abolish formalism. Its metafictional impulse prevents any suppression of its formal or fictive identity . . . But it is not as if 'it really happened' [is] an unproblematic statement . . ." (Poetics 94).

Kirouac 7

Introduction: A Few Facts about Fiction

Facts are not necessarily true. As a matter of fact, the very concept of truth is a matter subject to interpretation. In "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences"

Jacques Derrida identifies "two interpretations of interpretation" (925). One is that of the historical empiricist who "dreams of deciphering a truth or an origin," which is objective and absolute, and the opposing view is one which recognizes no origin and affirms no absolute truth

(Derrida 925). The genres of non-fiction take the former tact, as do many categories of fiction.

The mystery, the bildungsroman, the thriller, and the horror genres all rely heavily upon the discovery of concrete or near-universal truths. Yet some narratives lend no credence to the concept of absolutes.

The contemporary strain of literature which resists truth as an absolute is known as postmodernism. As Linda Hutcheon explains in The Politics of Postmodernism, this literary approach "reveals a desire to understand present culture as the product of previous representations" (Politics 58). In other words, it accepts past narratives as individual interpretations of the facts while encouraging alternative contemporary views. In "Defining the

Postmodern," Jean-François Lyotard characterizes postmodernism by its sense of skepticism toward the promise of humanism, which draws upon an understanding of the past to empower the ideas of the present (1934-35). Meanwhile, in "Modernity versus Postmodernity" Jrgen

Habermas recognizes that one of the tenets of postmodernism is to oppose the appropriation of history for moralistic purposes (1955). According to Hutcheon, the difference between Habermas and Lyotard's analyses marks a significant split in scholarly views of the postmodern (Politics

24-25). However, both Habermas and Lyotard agree that postmodernism aims to relieve its narratives from reliance upon recorded history. Kirouac 8

Postmodernism's apparent detachment from historical context makes it unpopular in some circles. The postmodern is sometimes unfavorably criticized for its lack of direct connection to the historical conventions of form and genre (Politics 17). With its emphases on invention and aesthetics, postmodernism often does disregard matters of record. As a result, it is sometimes considered politically or socially irrelevant (Politics 3). Yet what postmodernism may lack in historical relevance, it more than makes up for in cultural significance. As Hutcheon notes, postmodernist literature "manages to legitimize culture (high and mass) even as it subverts it" (Politics 15). But the effect does not end with stratifications of art; postmodernism also weaken the barriers between the economic classes, sexes and genders, national distinctions, and racial categories. As Hutcheon makes clear in her groundbreaking work A Poetics of

Postmodernism, though postmodern works of literature are sometimes perceived as being frivolous or pointless, each one presents not only one point but multiple conflicting points simultaneously (Poetics 119). Even the choice of the article used in Hutcheon's title (A rather than The) reflects the all-inclusive nature of postmodernism since it acknowledges the validity of other possible analyses. In the postmodernist view, all voices are worth listening to.

The narrative of any culture, subculture, or individual is framed by history. A historiography represents "an attempt to comprehend and master [the past]" (Politics 64). That is what historians do when assembling a master narrative. "All past 'events' are potential historical

'facts,'" Hutcheon writes, "but the ones that become facts are those that are chosen to be narrated"

(Politics 75). That is precisely why dominant countries, cultures, and administrations are empowered to write history while others are relegated to an existence as subalterns. "The problem" with this situation "is that historians deal with representations, with texts, which they then process" (Politics 86). Even assuming the information is objectively true to begin with, few Kirouac 9 individuals and, perhaps, none of the world's social groupings are capable of setting aside their own interests in order to report the absolute truth. Instead, all histories consist of information selected for the purpose of telling a specific version of a tale.

Though a great deal of the story is excluded from any given history, the record is typically presented as a totalized narrative. Hutcheon defines totalizing as "the process . . . by which writers of history, fiction, or even theory render their materials coherent, continuous, [and] unified" with a strong emphasis on the concept of control (Politics 62). Authors of such narratives purport to tell stories in their entirety (Politics 62-63). Yet a postmodern perspective demands that more (if not all) points are added to the plot. The movement of the center, meaning the central cultural events which command historicity, represents a paradigmatic shift in the way historical events are understood (Derrida 916). In a world whose historical record is informed by a diverse number of voices, understandings of history have become largely subjective. All paradigms exist simultaneously as competing discourses (Derrida 916). No one version—nor all of them together—tells the whole story, but postmodern sensibilities do not demand this.

The postmodern alternative to totalization is bricolage. The bricoleur pieces together mismatched items to artfully create a discernible image (Derrida 920). This process differs from that of a historiographer in that the final product is explicitly incomplete. According to Derrida,

"the mythopoetical virtue (power) of bricolage . . . is the stated abandonment of all reference to a center" (920). Another key difference between the totalizing historian and the bricoleur is that the latter's work is easily recognizable as art. "Both discovery and invention . . . involve some recourse to artifice and imagination," Hutcheon argues, "but there is a significant difference in the epistemological value traditionally attached to the two acts" (Politics 64). "It is this distinction that postmodernism problematizes," she continues (Politics 64). The question is how Kirouac 10 different—if at all—are fictional narratives from those which are factual and thus purportedly true.

One text worth examining in reference to this question is Roland Barthes by Roland

Barthes. As a prolific author and the subject of much analysis, Barthes, when writing this autobiography, "had no other solution than to rewrite [himself] . . . to add to the books, to the themes, to the memories, to the texts, another utterance" (142). A man cannot even be an absolute authority over himself. According to Adam Philips, author of the autobiography's

Preface, "As a critic Barthes always read for whatever was supposedly beyond question in a text" and criticized it for its power to reduce individuals or even whole societies to a simple image

(vii-ix). Thus, Barthes took on the role of a bricoleur: "I kept only the images which enthrall me," he writes, however "as it happens, only the images of my youth fascinate me" (3). Since

Barthes's process of selection favors a youthful, possibly more attractive presentation of his persona, it might be considered self-serving. Yet that is not an attempt to totalize the narrative.

By acknowledging the bias he employed in the writing process, Barthes consciously exposes his narrative to critical reinterpretation. This is a sign of postmodern sophistication. After all, "The quest for singularity . . . might be a form of arrested development" (Philips v). Narratives are open to interpretation and analysis. In regard to his autobiography, Barthes insists that "It must all be considered as if spoken by a character in a novel" (Barthes 1).

Some narratives, like Barthes's, are composed in such a way that they seem to critique themselves and are therefore considered to belong to the postmodern genre known as metafiction. Meta can be translated from Greek as "after" or "beyond." According to the Oxford

English Dictionary, the term meta is "Prefixed to the name of a subject or discipline to denote another [subject or discipline] . . . which raises questions about the nature of the original." Thus, Kirouac 11 metafiction is fiction which operates on a second level that reflects upon and questions the whole. The simultaneous utilization and subversion of representational convention is one of the general characteristics of the postmodern, but this dual emphasis is even more true of the particular breed of postmodernism Hutcheon names historiographic metafiction (Politics 13-15).

When history and metafiction are combined as historiographic metafiction (H.M.), the totalizing effect is countered. A Hutcheon explains, "The epistemological question of how we know the past joins the ontological one of the status of the traces of that past" (Poetics 122).

Historiographic metafiction involves the recognition that the historian must interpret the meaning of artifacts and data collected through testimony, which is itself an interpretation of events.

Metafictional historiographies raise the question of "whether the historian discovers or invents the totalizing narrative form or model [emphasis in original]" (Hutcheon 64). In other words,

H.M. causes readers to doubt the veracity of historical narratives regardless of their claims to truthfulness or lack thereof. This "flaunting of the conventions of historiography is . . . very postmodern" (Poetics 91). It is also becoming increasingly common to display its strategies in contemporary literature.

Ansgar Nnning draws connections between form and narrative in "Where

Historiographic Metafiction and Narratology Meet: Towards an Applied Cultural Narratology."

Nnning makes a distinction between cultural narratology, which is "a cultural analysis of narrative fictions" and contextualist narratology, which is concerned with the historical events which lead to the telling of a tale (356-57). However, he acknowledges that narratology in general "has followed a course . . . in the direction of a growing awareness of the complex interplay that exists between both texts and their cultural contexts and between textual features and the interpretive choices involved in the reading process" (357). That means that the formal Kirouac 12 elements of a genre can work alongside a narrative to change the likely interpretation of a work of literature. For example, a narrative, if told in ballad form, might be perceived to be less factually accurate than if it was presented in the form of a newspaper article. Yet this affects only meaning and never truth because "historiographic metafiction deals not so much with historical facts as with the epistemological problems attached to the reconstruction of historical events"

(Nnning 365). H.M. focuses on process, not product. For that reason, historiographic metafictional novels, like most postmodern works of literature, emphasize form over content, and each formal element utilized in H.M. supports different rhetorical contexts within a work.

Among the "various levels of communication" cited by Nnning are the "metatextual" and

"paratextual," both of which are "thematized and structurally incorporated" (361). The metatext of an H.M. provides analysis and/or commentary regarding the rhetoric implied by paratextual materials.

The work of historiographic metafiction is often conducted through paratexts. The term paratext was coined by Gerard Genette, who argued that, like any other sort of recorded history, paratexts help to provide context for a work of literature (Genette 265-66). Genette marks two spatially-designated subcategories (263-64). One of these, the epitext, first exists outside of a particular volume. Some examples of epitexts are advertisements for a book and interviews with its author. The other type of paratext, the peritext, originates within the volume in which the text itself is printed. This thesis is primarily concerned with the latter.

In an essay titled "Reclaiming Silenced and Erased Histories: The Paratextual Devices of

Historiographic Metafiction," Leah McCormack appropriately defines paratexts as smaller texts,

"essentially, documents," found within a larger one (38). Peritexts, in particular, call attention to the historical nature of a work. These paratexts have the power "to make it present, to assure its Kirouac 13 presence in the world" (Genette 261, emphasis in original). That holds true for underrepresented or alternative histories as much as it does for those which are more established. Even if a representation of history is believed to be false (or, as in some cases, is verifiably fabricated), the presence of paratexts helps to "prevent any tendency on the part of the reader to universalize and internalize—that is, to dehistoricize" (Politics 86). Thus, paratexts safeguard minority voices against the crushing weight of a master narrative. In an H.M., the voice of hegemony might find counterpoint in paratextual footnotes, or, as I suggested in my presentation for the 5th Annual

Gender Matters Conference, that voice might even be relegated to a series of paratexts. Though all paratexts converse with the texts they accompany, the nature and location of each peritext affects that interplay, and general theory is unequal to the task of determining every possible application (Genette 269-70). Yet, "Whatever the paratextual form . . . the function is to make space for the intertexts of history within the texts of fiction" (Politics 86, emphasis in original).

My goal here is to explore just a few of the ways paratexts perform that function.

In this thesis, I will analyze the ways which paratexts operate in relation to the primary narratives of three works of fiction. A different form of paritext is the focus of each chapter. The first section examines the footnotes used in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot

Diaz. The second chapter deals with the unreal appendices of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the

Rings, and the third and final one concerns the Introduction to Lemony Snicket: The

Unauthorized Autobiography. Using these three as case studies, I explicate the function of paratexts as challenges to the textual representations of both fictional narratives and true stories alike.

Kirouac 14

Footnotes in a Postmodern Historiography

The paratextual form most often associated with historical writing is the footnote.

Examining The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao alongside other H.M.s, McCormack builds upon Hutcheon's idea that the "combination in H.M. of an 'aggressive assertion of the historical' with the 'social particularity of the fictive' draws attention 'not to what fits the master narrative, but instead to the ex-centric, the marginal, the borderline—all those things that threaten the

(illusory but comforting) security of the centered" (McCormack 39). Paratextual elements such as the footnotes in Oscar Wao are typographical representations of that decentralization. Yunior,

Oscar Wao's narrator and, within the context of the novel itself, its author, employs footnotes to subvert the dominant historical record of the Dominican Republic, but, in doing so, he presents his own grand narrative, one that is no more objectively true than the one it replaces.

Most texts containing paratextual elements take on the quality of having been written at some time in the past; they are presented as being pieces of recorded history. In an article titled

"On the Borders of the Page, on the Borders of Genre: Artificial Paratexts in Golden Age

Detective Fiction," Malcah Effron examines the function footnotes serve in works of historiographic fiction. Effron notes that "footnotes identify the physical body of the narrative as a material item for the reader's consumption" by "convey[ing] that the body of the text has been read and annotated" by the author of the note (202). In Oscar Wao, that author is Yunior, whose narration is chronologically positioned more than a decade after the death of the title character

(Diaz 325). Though the story is told in a non-linear fashion, all of its events are part of the past, and Yunior, as the ostensible author, is aware of every detail. Thus, in a way, the footnotes, those final additions used to explain that which requires further explanation, exert more authority over the narrative than all other portions of the text do. Kirouac 15

Though Yunior is an unlikely scholar, he is one who writes with some authority. Monica

Hanna acknowledges that fact in "'Reassembling the Fragments': Battling Historiographies,

Caribbean Discourse, and Nerd Genres in Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao."

Yunior makes use of a scholarly apparatus by referring to academic and literary sources and

subjects whenever possible (Hanna 504). Including footnotes is one sign of scholarly rigor, but

direct references to Yunior's scholarship can be found in the main text, as well. Before

completing his book (if it can be said to be complete), Yunior begins a successful teaching career

(Diaz 326). He is also, apparently, a regular attendee of MLA conferences (Diaz 298). He is,

therefore, a scholar of the humanities in general if not history in particular. Yet the only way to

study history is through the research and scholarship of others (Hutcheon 34). According to

Hanna, "Yunior becomes a writer-historian in the process of researching Oscar's family" (500).

He has, for example, consulted once-secret documents obtained by United States authorities

(Diaz 99). Thus, much of the history Yunior presents may be presumed to be factual and largely

accurate.

Yet some of Yunior's work is clearly not academic. The materials used in his research

include Oscar's "books, his games, his manuscript, his comic books, his papers" and other

miscellaneous items (Diaz 330). The inclusion of comic, fantasy, and science fiction sources

does not necessarily indicate poor research practice. However, Yunior himself admits that Oscar

"never defaced a book in his life," which implies that the vast majority of these materials are not

annotated (Diaz 331). Therefore, most of Oscar's artifacts are purely fictional and have no value

from a strict historiographic point of view.

Much of the material for Yunior's book seems to be culled from his own notes and

recordings from personal interviews, but the reliability of these sources can also be called into Kirouac 16

question. "I've got it right here on tape," Yunior remarks to Oscar's mother, "La Inca told you

you had to leave the country and you laughed. End of story" (Diaz 160). Naturally, each of

Yunior's direct sources has her own view of events, and when those views conflict, the truth

becomes more difficult to determine, yet Yunior easily makes such determinations. As all recorders of history must, he privileges one source over another.

Like all history, the tale that Yunior tells is probably at least partially false despite being factual. In histories which are purportedly true, "footnotes are often the space where opposing

views are dealt with (and textually marginalized)" (Hutcheon 84). Yunior's notes serve a slightly

different purpose. In Oscar Wao the inclusion of evidentiary paratexts "complicates rather than precludes their evidential value" (McCormack 38). Instead of minimizing conflicting accounts,

Yunior exaggerates them, which is its own form of revision. As is apparent in Oscar Wao, footnotes in H.M. may replace the prevailing master narrative more than they challenge the existence of one.

Yunior seems to reference the official record of the Dominican Republic primarily so that he can criticize it. In the novel's very first footnote, he refers to Trujillo's "forging of the

Dominican peoples into a modern state" (Diaz 3). As Hanna rightly asserts, "the choice of the

term 'forge' carries a double valence, indicating that the 'modern state' is a creation while also

suggesting . . . a forgery, a counterfeit" (Hanna 503). It should be added that "forging" also

suggests a process of pounding materials that have been weakened by fire into a shape they

would not have taken otherwise, as a ruthless dictator might do to what he perceives to be an

unruly population. It can easily be argued that Yunior's wording reveals his perception of the

state historiography of the D.R. as forced and fraudulent. By relegating the official state history of the Dominican Republic to a series of footnotes, Yunior demonstrates his lack of preference Kirouac 17 for that government-constructed narrative.

Despite his unfavorable view of the administrations he examines, Yunior attempts to perform due diligence toward his responsibilities as a historiographer. "Although not essential to

[Oscar's family's] tale," notes regarding one of Trujillo's successors, Joaquin Balaguer, are included because they are "essential to the Dominican [story]" (Diaz 90). Despite his efforts,

Yunior finds the reconstruction of history to be difficult since "Trujillo and Company didn't leave a paper trail" (Diaz 243). The official record of the D.R. is "a historiography characterized by silences, denials, and the violent repression of voices that might contradict the official narrative" (Hanna 504). Such gaps in the historical record are represented by missing or destroyed texts. The lost works of an actress-turned-author, a popular journalist, a doctoral candidate, and a prep school teacher are referred to in footnotes 8, 9, 11, and 12 respectively. The final works of Oscar and his grandfather, Abelard, serve a similar function in the narrative, and those two authors, like all of the others, are killed under the cover of night or of intense secrecy.

In Oscar Wao, as in reality, "the regime silenced [alternative voices] by murdering scholars and activists, destroying documentation, and censoring to the point of cultivating [a] self-censorship that permeates all aspects of the quotidian" (Hanna 506). Even Balaguer left "pagina[s] en blanco" in his memoirs as a method of self protection. The sun rarely shined under "the platano curtain," and, as a result, the seeds of dissension seldom grew.

Having been raised partially within Dominican culture, Yunior cannot be completely objective in regard to it. On the other hand, as a member of that community, he is acutely aware of its particular contexts. According to Yunior, "all the most important things on the Island

[were] not something folks really talked about" (Diaz 2). Presumably, that is a tendency carried over from Hispaniola to the United States. Even Oscar's family prefers allowing him to repeat Kirouac 18 their errors over having to talk about their own unfortunate histories (Hanna 506). In a sense, each of them and, perhaps, by extrapolation, a great number of Dominicans are unwilling, unconscious collaborators in their own oppression. Mourning Oscar's loss, Lola decides that the

Dominican community consists of "Ten million Trujillos" (Diaz 324). Yunior is no exception.

Ironically, through its attempts to erase certain aspects of history and to forever silence any voice of dissent, the Trujillo administration leaves spaces for Yunior to fill with his own version of events. He recognizes that "all texts, regardless of their 'archival' status, are open to interpretation, and the often fragmentary nature of evidential documents allows room for invention" (McCormack 38). And that is precisely what he does—invent.

Knowing that he can never rediscover the mass of lost Dominican history, Yunior attempts to blend it with his own experiences and those of Oscar's family in order to transform the narrative into bricolage. For that reason, "the footnotes are significant not just in their mimicry of Western history-writing but within the novel's themes of silence and recovery" as well (McCormack 48). Just as the notes are added to the main narrative to provide historical or cultural context, so are certain stretches of footnotes fictionalized in order to relate them to known persons or events. The fuku curse is just one example. In another example, Yunior recounts the moments just before Trujillo's assassination:

Perhaps on that last night, El Jefe, sprawled in the back of his Bel Air, thought

only of the routine pussy that was awaiting him at Estancia Fundacion. Perhaps he

thought of nothing. Who can know? In any event: there is a black Chevrolet

approaching, like Death itself, packed to the rim with U.S.-backed assassins of the

higher classes…." (Diaz 154).

Despite his equivocations, Yunior describes the scene in vivid detail, and the shift from the past Kirouac 19

to present tense makes the event seem all the more real. Though he admits that the knowledge he

presents is impossible to obtain, the rhetorical question "Who can know?" does little to mitigate

the force of his presentation. Similarly, his protestations about not having the "full story" fall flat

since he maintains that "all the terrible shit that happened happened" (Diaz 243).

Hanna makes the case that the novel offers a "'resistance history' . . . a historiography that

shifts the narrative structure . . . allowing for a representation of national history that is cognizant of its various, sometimes dissonant, elements" (500). McCormack agrees, stating that "the ex- centric position of the writer . . . allows for a destabilization of the histories and intertexts created by the hegemonic center" (McCormack 53). Tim Lanzendorfer of Johannes Gutenburg

University expresses a slightly different view in "The Marvelous History of the Dominican

Republic in Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." Lanzendorfer's response to

Hanna is found, most appropriately, in the notes of the article, where he writes that, whereas

Hanna and others characterize Oscar Wao as a pastiche with "pseudohistorical depth," he

believes that Yunior's historiography is as valid as anyone's (Lanzendorfer 139-40).

Lanzendorfer rejects Hanna's theory concerning a "resistance history" in Oscar Wao on the basis

that Yunior's history of the Dominican Republic is the result of an attempt to be all-inclusive

(140). In a sense, the historiography presented through the footnotes in Oscar Wao is even more

totalizing than what might be found in a textbook. He offers what Hutcheon describes as "a

strange kind of critique, one bound up . . . with its own complicity with power and domination"

(Politics 4, emphasis in original).

The readers' "mandatory two seconds of Dominican history" include the fact that Trujillo

was "Famous for changing ALL THE NAMES of ALL THE LANDMARKS in the Dominican

Republic to honor himself" (Diaz 2). Though Yunior's historiographic vision is much more Kirouac 20 inclusive, it is no less prescriptive. His account does not exclude Trujillo, as Trujillo's does everyone else; however, it does modify certain details for the sake of the story Yunior wishes to tell. In footnote 5, Yunior refers to a "Dictionary of Dominican Things" (Diaz 20). Presumably, these are "Dominican Things" as Yunior defines them. In footnote 17, Yunior admits to not one but two willful historical inaccuracies (Diaz 132). Though these errata are fairly innocuous, they serve as evidence of the narrator's willingness to stretch the truth regarding the facts he presents.

The liberties Yunior takes are not limited to the facts contained in the master narrative; they extend into the de Leon family's story, as well. At the beginning of Chapter Five, "Poor

Abelard," Yunior writes that the true beginning of the tale is "Abelard and the Bad Thing he said about Trujillo" (Diaz 211). However, the attached note contradicts that statement: "If you ask me," Yunior comments, "I would have started when the Spaniards 'discovered' the New World"

(211). In point of fact, Yunior does begin with the story of Columbus and the Fuku. "Who am I to question their historiography?" Yunior wonders (211). Yet, as the author of the de Leons' story, he not only questions their tale but literally re-writes it. Regardless, he exerts a claim of factual accuracy. In the section subtitled "A Note from Your Author," Yunior makes a false appeal to truthfulness: "I know I've thrown a lot of fantasy and sci-fi in the mix, but this is supposed to be a true account of the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao [emphasis in original]"

(Diaz 285). Yet it is not the science fiction that Oscar and Yunior read which calls the truth of the narrative into question. It is, rather, the claim to truthfulness and the attempt at forming a complete, totalized narrative (despite protestations to the contrary) which make Yunior's critical version of history no more accurate than the previously established hegemonic view.

Yunior's treatment of history is a reaction to, and a reflection of, that of those he criticizes. Balaguer's "pagina[s] en blanco" provide a space for the truth (Diaz 90). Yet the fact Kirouac 21 that the pages remain blank may be taken to mean that there is no truth to be found. Yunior's footnotes in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao serve as placeholders for the blank pages and other missing textual artifacts of the Dominican Republic, which can only be referred to but not referenced, but they are no more true than any other substitute would be. As Yunior himself must admit, "What is certain is that nothing's certain" (Diaz 243). At least with Yunior's reconstruction of events, readers receive what no hegemonic historiography will provide: "the histories (in the plural) of the losers as well as the winners, of the regional (and colonial) as well as the centrist, of the unsung many as well as the much sung few" (Hutcheon 66). For most, it is better to be a footnote in history than to have never been recorded at all. Yet making a mark on the official record presents its own set of problems. Those troubles can be discerned through an examination of the life and works of J.R.R. Tolkien, whose proto-postmodern literature is rarely recognized as such.

Kirouac 22

A Text Appended and Another Up-ended

All texts are a matter of record whether or not they are intended as such. Before the advent of the novel and the rise of modernism, little distinction existed between works of history and other literature (Poetics 105-06). It was understood that written narratives of almost any variety were an extension of—if not an attempt to directly represent—oral history. For that reason, the formation of a master narrative has long been thought an intrinsic property of the novel (Politics 63). "While the oral tradition has traditionally been directly connected with the cultural handing down of the past," that tradition's relationship to fiction has evolved slightly over time since "its particular role in postmodern fiction is tied up with that of the trappings of realism upon which paratextuality relies" (Politics 90). In the contemporary world of literature, fiction is understood to be fictional. However, when an author inserts paratexts into a work, he invokes the power of historical fact. He also further asserts himself as an author and calls added attention to the historical context in which he wrote.

J.R.R. Tolkien was the author of two seminal works of literary fantasy, The Hobbit and

The Lord of the Rings, but he was first known in academic circles for his scholarship on the epic

Beowulf. In "The Death of the Author," Barthes acknowledges that "The author . . . is always

conceived of as the past of his own book" (876). As Barthes might have predicted, Tolkien's past

was essentially re-written after the publication of The Hobbit. The man once known among his

colleagues as a fine scholar of pre-medieval literature became the world famous writer of a

popular book for children. Such was his reputation while later penning The Lord of the Rings. It

is the public persona of the writer of a work more than the work itself which "reigns in histories

of literature" and survives within "the very consciousness of men of letters anxious to unite their

person and their literature through diaries and memoirs" ("Death of the Author" 875). As a Kirouac 23 student of historical literature, Tolkien surely understood that. Hence, while constructing his masterwork, The Lord of the Rings, he self-consciously included metafictional elements and copious paratexts in what can be perceived as an attempt to reclaim his identity as a scholar and to legitimize his status as a respectable author.

The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) is an epic fantasy novel of uncommon complexity.

However, prevailing attitudes regarding its content genre cause critics and scholars to struggle to categorize it. Judging by the criteria adopted by Wilbur Lucius Cross in his introduction to The

Development of the English Novel, Tolkien's greatest work is not a novel at all, for it "represents

[life] in the setting of strange, improbable, or impossible adventures" and thus is more properly called a romance (xv). Cross works to create a total history of the novel, yet the arts of writing and analyzing literature have evolved since 1899, the year of his publication. For that reason, the defining criteria Cross employs are ill-equipped to process a work like The Lord of the Rings, which was not only written during a more progressive literary period but also contains elements of archaic nostalgia which act as a barrier to simple classification.

In an article entitled "'I Would Rather Have Written in Elvish': Language, Fiction, and

'The Lord of the Rings,'" Elizabeth D. Kirk notes that "as nineteenth-century fiction . . . defined a function for itself different from that which narrative had served in the past, and won respect for that function, it cut itself off from many of the possibilities available to fictional art" (18).

Ironically, this literary Puritanism led much of the reading public to eschew imaginative literature for several decades. Modernist critics sometimes denigrate the postmodern for its refusal to make clear distinctions between popular and high art (Politics 28). Though The Lord of the Rings is drawn from traditions as old as storytelling itself, it features proto-postmodernist elements similar to those found in works of historiographic metafiction. As a result, it was Kirouac 24 something of an oddity in its own time. It was also a departure from Tolkien's prior fiction, which had been aimed at children and young adults.

The Hobbit was, indeed, a children's book. In fact, Tolkien originally wrote the story for his own children when they were young. At the time, he could not have guessed how popular the tale would one day become. Unfortunately, the work that first made him famous also firmly cast the scholar Tolkien as an author of juvenile fiction. In "Beyond The Hobbit: J.R.R. Tolkien's

Other Works for Children," Janet Brennan Croft examines several of the great author's lesser known works. In the process, she also helps to illuminate Tolkien's transition from a children's writer to an author of serious adult fiction. As he sought publication for Farmer Giles of Ham, one of three works of fiction published between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's authorial identity was caught between that of a pure scholar and that of an author of supposedly frivolous children's books. As a result, Farmer Giles contains a number of "sophisticated linguistic jests and digs at academia" and, while promoting the book, Tolkien was known for

"poking fun at [his] own profession" (Croft 68). These self-deprecating antics may, in fact, have been Tolkien's somewhat ironic attempts to advertise his credibility as an author.

Tolkien's treatise On Fairy Stories is part of the author's effort to assert his literary authority. In the treatise, which was published not long before Farmer Giles of Ham, he argues that fantastic elements do not, necessarily, render a work juvenile or inferior in any way (11-12).

Meanwhile, Tolkien added a foreword to Farmer Giles written under the persona of a literary critic who lauds the work for its academic value (Croft 68-69). Thus, Tolkien boldly declares that one work of literature could sport both romantic appeal and academic importance. The author's son, who is also his literary executor, asserts that Tolkien was quite deliberate in altering his form to suit an older audience (Hammond & Scull xxi). J.R.R. Tolkien made a conscious Kirouac 25

effort to build his reputation as an elite novelist. These efforts would culminate in his writing of

LOTR.

In The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, Wayne G. Hammond and Christina

Scull provide "A Brief History of The Lord of the Rings," which considers correspondences

between Tolkien and his publisher. When urged to produce a sequel to The Hobbit, Tolkien first

responded that he could "'not think of anything more to say about hobbits [emphasis in original]'"

but he had "'only too much to say, and much already written, about the world into which the

hobbit intruded'" (qtd. in Hammond and Scull xviii). Tolkien's use of the verb intrude is very

telling. In adapting The Hobbit for publication as a novel and being short on time, Tolkien set the

story in Middle-earth, the fantasy world he had painstakingly created for another project

(Hammond and Scull xviii). Apparently, it was a decision which he came to regret before

penning The Lord of the Rings.

Much of Tolkien's literary work was affected by necessity. The time he had for his

writing career in comparison to his other responsibilities was short, as was the store of funds available to support it. Before his income was supplemented by sales from The Hobbit, Tolkien's teaching salaries (from Oxford and Leeds University) were insufficient to cover his children's educational expenses and the cost of living during WWII (Hammond and Scull xviii). The commercial and popular success of his first novel afforded Tolkien a greater degree of artistic freedom. As time went on, the family's financial difficulties eased and Tolkien became more and more determined to exert agency over his literary career (Hammond and Scull xxi-xxviii). As a

result, The Lord of the Rings displays a degree of sophistication which no other of Tolkien's

previous works—indeed, no prior work of fantasy—ever before had.

C.S. Lewis, Tolkien's friend and fellow Oxford Don, argued that the work represents a Kirouac 26

milestone in literary history (Hammond and Scull xxxvi). It may, after all, be the first true epic

fantasy novel written for an adult audience. As it is stated in LOTR's Prologue, "The Authorities"

do not always recognize any intellectual value in The Hobbit (12). LOTR, however, is both

implicitly and explicitly academic. The Red Book of Westmarch, which, within the context of

Tolkien's world, contains both The Hobbit and LOTR, is ostensibly "the memoirs of Bilbo and

Frodo . . . supplemented by the accounts of their friends and the learning of the wise"

(VI.9.1027). This description implies the workings of a scholarly apparatus in which the hobbits

are authors while elves and wizards serve as a peer review board. While such an idea may seem

childish to some, even the publisher acknowledges that The Lord of the Rings "is not a children's

book," describing it instead as "a study of the noble and heroic in relation to the commonplace"

(qtd. in Hammond & Scull xxxiv-xxxv). This admission seems to work against the publisher's

best interest, for it renders the work less marketable as a sequel. It is, however, an accurate assessment of the book as it should be considered in isolation.

LOTR may be categorized as a (pre)historical metafiction. According to Nnning, one of

the key features of postmodern metafiction is the designation of its setting in relation to recorded history (362). However, that alone is not enough to classify LOTR as historiographic metafiction.

Hutcheon is more helpful in that regard. She invokes the work of Georg Lukács to assert the requirements of a historical novel and suggests the necessary elements of a work of H.M. The main character of a historical novel must be "a type, a synthesis of the general and particular"

(Poetics 113-15). He must be an everyman. Conversely, the protagonist of a historiographic metafiction should be an outcast, a stranger to his world who lives in the margins of society

(Poetics 113-14). Hobbits such as Frodo Baggins are simple, down-to-earth folk, but in a world full of magic and the creatures of myth, their normalcy renders them quite remarkable. Thus, in Kirouac 27

regard to this point, LOTR might qualify as either a historical novel or an H.M.

The second requirement of a historical novel is the use of minor, seemingly insignificant

detail. Unlike many authors of the time, but entirely appropriate to his membership among 'The

Inklings,' Tolkien's prose is like "an inkblot in which we find whatever we bring to it" (Kirk 17).

Rather than describing a character or scene in great detail, he allows readers to impress their own

imaginations upon the shapes he provides. This "flies in the face of most modern poetics" and is

one reason for negative attitudes regarding Tolkien's authorship (Kirk 12). However, Tolkien

often dwells on mundane matters such as the precise amount of time taken to travel between two

points and methods used to cultivate particular varieties of crops. In this, LOTR resembles a

historical novel. A third qualification, the use of historical figures, does not apply since LOTR

ostensibly takes place in a time before recorded history as we know it.

To the requirements for a historical novel, Hutcheon adds another peculiar to

historiographic metafiction. That requirement is one of two narrative approaches: either a lone storyteller who imposes his narrative interpretation upon the entire tale or multiple narrators who demonstrate various points of view (Poetics 117). LOTR has both. Within the context of the scholarly frame, historiographers assert the veracity of what any reader would otherwise assume to be a fictional tale. Meanwhile, within the primary narrative, most of the heroes and even a few of the villains lend their voice to the narrative via free indirect discourse. Consider the following exchange between Frodo's companion, Samwise, and the monstrous spider queen, Shelob:

Now the miserable creature was right under her, for the moment out of reach of

her sting and of her claws. Her vast belly was above him with its putrid light, and

the stench of it almost smote him down. Still his fury held for one more blow, and

before she could sink upon him, smothering him and all his little impudence of Kirouac 28

courage, he slashed the bright elven-blade across her with desperate strength.

(IV.10.728)

Of special note is Tolkien's choice of adjectives. The first sentence presents the normally sweet, caring Samwise as a "miserable creature" from Shelob's perspective. The second examines

Shelob's "vast belly" with its "putrid" qualities as detected by Sam. Then there is a tug-of-war between the two points of view which mirrors the physical struggle taking place. The momentary clash is resolved when Sam turns his self-realized "desperate strength" into action while Shelob remains distracted by the hobbit's "little impudence."

Hutcheon makes note of brief instances of historical metafiction in works composed as long ago as the Early Modern Period, but she argues that contemporary H.M. is characterized by

"constant attendant irony," and the "obsessively recurring presence" of metanarrative themes

(Poetics x-xi). Such irony is clearly detectable in the tone indirectly employed for Shelob and her fellow antagonists, and that irony is made metanarrative by the fact that only Sam and the other protagonists could have added such passages to the Red Book. Therefore, any reference to a

"miserable," "desperate," "little" hobbit and all similarly negative criticisms of the protagonists are self-reflexive and indicative of the hobbits', as well as their creator's, disposition toward such

"creature[s]."

Though LOTR is distinguished from The Hobbit in terms of age category genre, it is not divorced from it completely. Instead, it serves as a meta-critique of that novel and of the author's reputation as a writer of children's fiction through a variety of formal and narrative elements. As a type of historiographic metafiction, it includes paratexts, and "paratextual insertions of these different kinds of historical traces of events . . . de-naturalize the archive, foregrounding above all the textuality of its representations" (Politics 92). Meanwhile, there is only the suggestion, Kirouac 29 rather than the assertion, that the information in the book is anything but fantastical. Instead, the facts presented in the paratexts, which work to provide the historical and cultural contexts for the primary narrative, "derive their force more from verisimilitude than from any objective truth"

(Poetics 105). On that point, the appendices refer readers to the Prologue, which states that "The dates given are often conjectural" (Prologue 15). Yet the information contained in the appendices appears as though it is real despite any lack of true factuality. Appendix C, for example, provides the genealogies for some of the story's most important figures. Appendices E and F are even more convincing, as they detail various linguistic and paleographic features of Middle-earth's cultures. The materials which follow LOTR's main text reinforce its status as a volume worthy of academic consideration. As a whole, the appendices give the impression of a scholarly rigor rarely seen in works of fiction.

In addition, a few passages carry semi-hidden metanarrative commentaries. According to an aside in Appendix F, for example, instances of orcish behavior "are easy to find," even today, for some, being "dreary and repetitive with hatred and contempt," believe that "only the squalid sounds strong" (1134). This tongue-in-cheek comment is undoubtedly aimed at critics and other contemporaries of Tolkien's who argued that, when compared to authors such as James Joyce and Henry Miller's, Tolkien's writing comes off as decidedly pedantic. It seems that Tolkien thought of those scholars as being much like Saruman, later called 'Sharkey' (a bastardized version of the orcish for old man) who, despite his continuing arrogance, "has lost all power, save his voice that can still daunt . . . and deceive" (VI.8.1019). Such, from a postmodern perspective, might modernist scholars seem. Tolkien's popularity with general audiences made him an attractive target for those who speak with such voices. In "The Story Was Already

Written: Narrative Theory in The Lord of the Rings," Mary R. Bowman recognizes that Kirouac 30

"Popularity, for a writer of fiction, can be a double-edged sword" (272). An author must, then (to fight cliché with cliché) prove that the pen is mightier. Tolkien accomplishes this with a well- honed wit and pointed jabs delivered via metafiction.

Tolkien utilizes the frame created by the Red Book as a device to facilitate his metafiction. Bowman notes a conversation between Frodo, the novel's protagonist, and his sidekick, Samwise, as being of particular relevance to the novel's meta-dialogue (273). During their conversation just outside of Cirith Ungol, Sam and Frodo explicitly discuss their roles in the story of which they are, even then, in the midst (IV.7. 711-713). Referring to plot echoes from the Silmarillion (the story which gave birth to Middle-earth) Sam recognizes that he and Frodo

"[a]re in the same tale still" (IV.8.712). Interestingly, in the real world, the Silmarillion had not yet been fully written. This particular intertextual reference speaks to a text which, despite being little more than a collection of pre-writing notes, had exerted influence upon two popular novels and, through them, would help to define modern fantasy.

The height of the meta-tension in The Lord of the Rings exists between Frodo and his kinsman and predecessor Bilbo Baggins, the protagonist of The Hobbit. Bilbo expresses

Tolkien's attitudes as they relate to that work while Frodo's demonstrates the author's meta- critical view in LOTR. There is already clear conflict between Frodo and Bilbo when they are reunited at Rivendell early in the novel (II.1.231-32). This tension persists throughout the remainder of their meetings. Bilbo asserts that stories "ought to have good endings" (II.3.273).

Frodo, however, knows that the story he is part of is no fairy tale. He allows only that a man will be "as happy as anyone can be, as long as [his] part of the Story goes on" (VI.9.1029). In this way, the younger hobbit, who embodies the attitudes presented by the later of the two novels, speaks with the voice of greater maturity. Kirouac 31

In the battle of wills over who will be the arbiter of Middle-earth's literary paradigm, it is

Frodo, not Bilbo, who is victorious. Bilbo "is perturbed by the unfolding events . . . which threaten to explode the closure he thought he had achieved" (Bowman 274). Ultimately, though, he simply surrenders. "It's much more comfortable to sit here and hear about it all," he says by way of excuse (VI.6.987). Bilbo's failure is the result of Tolkien's relative disfavor of him and of the totalized tale he most represents. It is observed almost immediately in LOTR that Bilbo "had always been rather cracked" (I.2.42). Also, "Bilbo's thin wandering hand" is contrasted with

"Frodo's firm flowing script" (VI.9.1026-27). In relief to Frodo, Bilbo Baggins is little more than

"a shadow" (II.1.232). Likewise, as Tolkien's version of sophisticated adult fiction, LOTR eclipses The Hobbit and all it represents. As Bowman concludes, "the critique of 'happily ever after' could not be more explicit" (288). Where Bilbo's story is a childish fantasy, Frodo's narrative, as fantastic as it seems, is more in keeping with reality.

Frodo is Bilbo's successor as the bearer of the ring, and he is the usurper of the tale which tells of it. In light of Frodo's telling, Bilbo's happy ending (and indeed the tale of The Hobbit as a whole) is recast as wishful thinking, at best. At worst, assuming the influence of the One Ring has sufficiently increased Bilbo's desire to manipulate others, The Hobbit becomes revisionist history reported by a corrupt, self-serving source. In either case, The Hobbit is, within the context of The Red Book of Westmarch, re-framed as being at least partially unreliable and perhaps entirely suspect. At the same time, in the real world, by shedding doubt upon the entire narrative of The Hobbit, Tolkien grants that work a degree of artistic and academic value that it had not possessed previously. He also renders LOTR more believable both in the sense that it is,

within its own context, the lone authority of correctitude and that it is a much more true-to-life

update of its precursor. Similarly, having re-characterized his own work, Tolkien reinvented Kirouac 32

himself as an author.

Tolkien demonstrates a compulsive, almost obsessive, control over LOTR's narrative. For

all his effort to facilitate reader engagement through ambiguity in terms of description, he leaves

little room for interpretation in matters of theme, plot, or structure. Tolkien created a world with

not only "spatial and chronological dimensions" but also "a 'model' . . . for the relationship of

language to action . . . and to civilization" (Kirk 10). He was also very clear that his work was, in

no way, allegorical (Kirk 5). This was, perhaps, a sign of his concern that LOTR would be misrepresented or misinterpreted. After all, "The explanation of a work is always sought in the

man or woman who produced it" ("Death of the Author" 875). Certainly, Tolkien's tale of a hero

whose quest leads to the slaying of a dragon is informed by the author's years of Beowulf

scholarship. Yet, when an author releases a text to the public, the historical meaning of that text is assigned by others ("Death of the Author" 877). In other words, despite the implication of his

designation, an author does not hold supreme authority over any piece of writing he creates.

In reality, an author has no control at all beyond the point of publication, but Tolkien

was prepared for such an eventuality. Tolkien's figurative death occurred soon after the release of

The Return of the King. The growing popularity of LOTR's second and third volumes called for further printings of the first, and to make a reprinting possible, the type for The Fellowship of the

Ring had to be reset. Unfortunately, the printer performed this action without informing the author or the publisher of the work and, because the proper checks and revisions did not take place, a large number of errata found their way into the text (Hammond and Scull xxxix).

Though his previous efforts did nothing to prevent that particular disaster, Tolkien was prepared for his loss of authorial control. Through a deliberate formal element, namely the appendices,

Tolkien punctuates the narrative of LOTR with the literal (pun intended) death of every major Kirouac 33 character of Middle-earth. This series of events is more or less concurrent to and correspondent with the non-literal death of the author, and it is an act which, for all intents and purposes, totalizes the history of the world Tolkien had created since it renders future sequels a virtual impossibility. Tolkien's symbolic death was inevitable. He chose to take the figures he had created with him.

Within the context of Middle-earth, Tolkien is a god. To make that assertion is not idolatry; textual evidence exists to support such a claim. Middle-earth's Supreme Being is known by many names. These include "The Writer of the Story," "the Creator," "Ilvatar," and "the

One" (Hammond and Scull 852). The first pair of monikers clearly suggests that Tolkien and the god of Middle-earth are one and the same. Meanwhile, "Ilvatar," a portmanteau of the designations illuminator and avatar, indicates the omniscient narrative persona which underwrites The Lord of the Rings as a whole. Again, that is Tolkien. Finally, the title "the One" hints at a connection between "The Writer of the Story" and the One Ring which will be further explored in later paragraphs. Tolkien's own words support the association of him with the hobbits' and elves' "Creator" when he describes that being as "'a finite but willing and self- conscious person'" (qtd. in Hammond and Scull 102). There is, perhaps, no better way to describe Tolkien himself. It was the author's willingness to write a sequel to The Hobbit which led to The Lord of the Rings, and his awareness of his death as author which resulted in the latter work's proto-postmodern features.

Insofar as he asserts total dominance over his created world, Tolkien is an author who is godly. However, as Kathleen E. Dubs argues in "Providence, Fate, and Chance: Boethian

Philosophy in The Lord of the Rings," Tolkien's work is not so much religious as it is philosophical. Unlike Lewis, Tolkien "deliberately eschewed any reference to Christianity in his Kirouac 34 works" and preferred the application of Boethian philosophy to his carefully-created world because it does not espouse any particular view of history (34-35). Boethianism is a creationist philosophy absent of religious dogma; "Boethius presents a universe . . . in which everything— even fate and chance—has purpose, even if that purpose is beyond the perception of human understanding" (Dubs 37). It is a philosophical premise which would serve any storyteller well, and it is one which Tolkien takes full advantage of.

The cast of characters in LOTR is completely subject to fate as Tolkien writes it. As

Galladrial, the nigh-all-knowing queen of the elves informs Frodo, "if you fail, then we are laid bare to the Enemy" yet "if you succeed, then our power is diminished . . . and the tides of time will sweep [the land of the elves] away" (II.7.365). Regardless of how the heroes proceed, their chapter in history will come to a close. There is no doubt about it: as Douglass Parker recognizes in his critical review of LOTR entitled "Hwaet We Holbytla" (a reference to Beowulf which translates roughly into "It was so with hole-builders"), the denizens of Middle-earth are "beings faced with utter destruction or qualified existence in a totally deterministic universe" (603). Their creator (Tolkien) has tasked them with an inverted version of the typical fantasy quest; instead of finding something or someone in an act of rescue, they are to destroy the object of power and, indirectly, the world along with it. Yet, like any scholarly historical narrative, the disposition of

LOTR is relatively disinterested and impartial. It is not Tolkien, whose voice is most projected through Bilbo and Frodo, who plays the villain in this scenario. It is Sauron who is the Lord of the Rings named in the title, and it is he who is the indirect cause of the destruction of all of

Middle-earth.

In light of Tolkien's apparent opinions regarding the criticism and consumption of literature and his clear attempt to render a metafictional critique of them, Sauron may be Kirouac 35 interpreted to be a surrogate for the reader of his work. Several key images and linguistic allusions support this interpretation. It is Sauron's eye which scans Middle-earth in search of the

One Ring (II.7.364-65). Sauron is, himself, never seen, but, through the influence of the Ring, he is associated with Frodo and with everyone else who has ever possessed that item. Also, an association is a circle, a circle is a ring, and in Tolkien's world the Ring grants an awareness to which the fourth wall is a thin barrier. As a result, the meta-narrator, who can be conceptualized as a composite of all ring bearers past and present, including Sauron, is imbued with the unerring awareness of an omniscient, third-person storyteller. This explains why, though Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam are the ostensible authors of LOTR, the narrative often contains free indirect discourse demonstrating the thoughts and feelings of other characters. It is also indicative of the connection which Tolkien feels with his reader. The Ring renders its wearer not invisible, "but horribly and uniquely visible," and provides him with "an understanding of tongues" (IV.10.734). It can be inferred, then, that the transparency of Tolkien's writing, though intentional, is a potentially detrimental element of which he is entirely aware.

Thus, Tolkien's self-consciousness is a sign of both literary skill and psychological trauma which results in the telling of a history that is strikingly familiar despite its unfamiliar setting. Despite all of his attempts to totalize the history of Middle-earth and to control his own record as an author, even Tolkien was unable to master the fate of his work or of himself. As long as other writers (such as Junot Diaz and the humble MA candidate who types these very words) continue to write in reference to Tolkien's work, The Lord of the Rings will live on in history even as its author continues to die.

Kirouac 36

A (Very) Intentional Fallacy

In the previous chapters, I have analyzed how a fictional author can use paratexts to

present an alternate historiography and how a real-life scholar utilized them to affect his own

authorial history. In this section, I explore the way one novelist employs a fictional authorial

persona along with a particular system of aesthetics to subvert attempts on the part of his

publisher to control his extra-textual historiography.

Lemony Snicket is best known as the author of A Series of Unfortunate Events, in which he documents the history of his protagonists, the Baudelaire Orphans. The children's surname is significant because Baudelaire, Habermas argues, was the catalyst of the mutation of aesthetic

modernism into postmodern practice (1948-49). Accordingly, the separation of the three orphans

from their parents and mentors represents the division between the modern and postmodern

literary periods, and Snicket is caught somewhere in-between. Though the first of his novels was

published in 1999, much of Snicket's historiography is situated far in the past. Vague references

to his activities over the course of "several eras" made on lemonysnicket.com suggest that he may

now be quite aged. By all indications, Snicket's lifespan closely matches the period of time

which encompasses the modern and postmodern literary periods.

Like Yunior, Lemony Snicket (L.S.) is a tormented scholar. Snicket's entry among the

authors listed on the HarperCollins Publishers' website is brief and describes his work, including

A Series of Unfortunate Events, as "published research." In this way, L.S. is presented as a

historian. According to the author's page on lemonysnicket.com, which is also administered by

HarperCollins, L.S. received "formal training . . . chiefly in rhetorical analysis"

(lemonysnicket.com). He is, therefore, a linguist as well. As an academician purported to be an

authority on both rhetorical argument and the historiography of at least one particular family and Kirouac 37

those surrounding them, Lemony Snicket appears to be well-qualified as the author of a

historical novel. However, "Mr. Snicket was stripped of several awards by the reigning

authorities" after some unknown event because "the scandal was swift, brutal, and inaccurately

reported in the periodicals of the day" (lemonysnicket.com). Within the context of his personal

historiography, L.S. was unjustly persecuted, but in reality his discrediting is entirely justified. In

fact, the works attributed to Snicket, as well as the supposed author himself and his own personal

history, are almost entirely fabricated.

Though his name is on the front cover of approximately two dozen novels, Lemony

Snicket is not a real author. He is actually the alter ego of real-world author Daniel Handler. It is

worth noting that, unlike L.S., Handler is not given an entry on HarperCollins' main site though

he writes under his given name as well. Nor is Handler credited with the works of L.S. anywhere

on lemonysnicket.com. Instead, the real author of A Series of Unfortunate Events and other contemporary children's favorites is put forth as the "representative" of his own carefully constructed authorial persona. Lemony Snicket is more than a pen name. He is, rather, a figure of literature—and of a brilliant imagination—which has become an institution in its own right.

To say that Lemony Snicket and Daniel Handler are one and the same would be an error.

Kendra Magnusson notes the distinction between the two in "Lemony Snicket's A Series of

Unfortunate Events: Daniel Handler and Marketing the Author." Though Handler utilizes the

Snicket persona in many of the works he has published, HarperCollins also employs it for promotional purposes (Magnusson 87). Since both the author and the publisher make use of the name, L.S. is as much a corporate symbol as he is an authorial mask. In "The Death of the

Author," Barthes argues that all composers of literature are stripped of their true identities in the process of writing (875). As noted in the discussion of Tolkien, this process is finalized upon a Kirouac 38 work's release to the public. Yet, Handler's figurative death occurs moment by moment as L.S.'s other handlers, the publishers, essentially ventriloquize through his mouthpiece without his consent or, perhaps, even his knowledge.

The tension between the author and the publisher of the Snicket novels results in both confluence and irony. Each installment in A Series of Unfortunate Events involves a contest over custody of unique and especially valuable children. Lemony Snicket, the author of the best- selling Series, is much like those children. Throughout all of his writings regarding the

Baudelaires, L.S.'s language connotes empathy for the trio, and the tone of the works demonstrates it as well. In "The Ethics and Practice of Lemony Snicket: Adolescence and

Generation X," Laurie Langbauer refers to Snicket as "the histrionic, doleful, cheerily naïve narrator who seeks to unravel the mystery of the Baudelaire orphans" (Langbauer 502). This child-like authorial persona is appropriate for works aimed largely at pre-teens, but it also appeals to adults who possess postmodern sensibilities.

Sophisticated readers of the postmodern may detect a hint of irony in Snicket's sympathetic comments. "My whole [recorded] life, from the cradle to the grave, is full of errors," he complains in Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, "but at least that won't happen to the Baudelaires" (7). This statement is quite ironic since Snicket has little direct contact with the children and the majority of the events reported in the Series have been collected from second-hand sources which are potentially unreliable. This comment also contains a degree of snide sarcasm which belies the apparent offer of sympathy. One aspect of L.S.'s character invokes the innocence and vulnerability of a child, but it also features a juvenile whimsy and a trickster's nature.

The words given to Snicket should rarely—if ever—be accepted at face value. The main Kirouac 39 text of each book in the Series begins with an advisory which warns the reader of how unpleasurable continued reading may be, and the "promotional material, in good reverse psychology, likewise implores readers to avoid the books" (Langbauer 506). Apparently, one of these admonitions originates from Handler and the other from HarperCollins, yet "understanding who Lemony Snicket is and what his presence signifies cannot be determined from the primary text(s)" (Magnusson 87). The editors and public relations specialists of HarperCollins have been known to project their voices through Snicket's texts and epitexts. Handler, on the other hand, turns the self-consciousness of postmodernism toward acts of conscious commentary regarding his authorial situation through paratextual features (Magnusson 86-87). Thusly, the struggle between an author and his publishers plays out among the formal elements of Snicket's historiographic metafiction.

The text most pertinent to this topic is Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography

(UA). The obvious question is how a text purported to be written by its own subject can possibly be "Unauthorized." The answer to that question lies in Barthes's "Death of the Author," and this will become more clear by the end of this chapter, but an explication of the text is necessary before the connections between text and paratext can be explained satisfactorily.

In its verso, the publisher's provide a summary of the UA making use of Snicket's voice:

The elusive author provides a glimpse into his mysterious and sometimes

confusing life, using fanciful letters, diary entries, and other miscellaneous

documents as well as photographs and illustrations.

Where the books in A Series of Unfortunate Events are famous for their metafictional asides which remind the reader that what he or she is reading is a matter of record, Snicket's

Unauthorized Autobiography accomplishes the same task through visually-indicated paratexts. Kirouac 40

The UA is a book full of imitation scribbles, stains, and distress marks. Some of the pages are even marked with printed simulacra of paperclips and tape. These paratextual accents add to the verisimilitude, if not the veracity, of the text.

Unlike most historiographies, The Unauthorized Autobiography repeatedly alludes to its own speciousness. One of the book's recurring themes is the unreliability of the fictional newspaper The Daily Punctilio, yet a large portion of the UA's paratexts originate from that source. One of the first documents presented in the autobiography is Snicket's obituary, which itself acknowledges that it is based upon reports from "anonymous and possibly unreliable sources" (3). In a separate note, Snicket recalls that "The Daily Punctilio has never been a reliable newspaper" though sources concur that he, himself, once worked there (5). The paper

"bases its articles on innuendo," which makes it "unlike a reliable newspaper, which bases its articles on facts" (5). Therefore, it is fair to conclude that The Punctilio is a relatively disreputable publication and not the sort of material one would rely upon for the purpose of scholarly research. According to the OED, punctilio can be defined as "minute detail of action or conduct" or "small or petty formality." By applying these definitions to the aptly-named newspaper, a reader will discern its (or, more accurately, its editors') propensity for carefully managing the information it reports without being overly concerned with the truthfulness of the material.

The Unauthorized Autobiography, as a whole, takes a similar position. One note reads:

"For various reasons, portions of this chapter have been changed or made up entirely, including this sentence" (159). That statement is an obvious paradox. It is unclear whether the note is intended to have been written by Snicket, an enemy of his, the publishing company, or some other source. Whatever the case may be, the passage sheds doubt upon the contents of Chapter Kirouac 41

Ten even as it lends credence to the other chapters of the book. As the note tacitly suggests, the remainder of the book contains no errors worthy of such a disclaimer. Yet in the world inhabited by Lemony Snicket, this could merely be the diabolical design of a radical group (or of the much-underestimated author Daniel Handler).

The works of Snicket/Handler are noted for sporting a degree of complexity that is uncharacteristic of children's fiction. In "Mbius Strips, Klein Bottles, and Dedications," Jill S.

Ratzan and her father, mathematician Lee Ratzan, recognize similarities between self-enveloping geometric shapes and the narrative strategies employed in Snicket's novels. These works

"confound the distinction between inside and outside," which makes them fine examples of metafiction (Ratzan and Ratzan 33). In the UA, the postmodern aesthetic is expressed primarily through the skillful employment of paratextual devices. Ratzan and Ratzan identify a few such devices, including the oddities found on the UA's publisher's page. This verso includes a sly reference to Handler's secondary career as a recording artist and, indirectly, to his being the true voice of Snicket (33). Perhaps more interestingly, it refers to L.S. as "a fraud, a criminal, a bestseller, a corpse, a fictional character, [and] . . . an embattled gentleman." Some of these labels have been detailed previously, but the latter two require explanation. For now, it should suffice to indicate that the given source of these labels is "an odd number of dubious authorities" and that "the people at this publishing house [HarperCollins] have no idea where the documents enclosed in [the] book came from" (verso). All of this suggests that the publishers at

HarperCollins, much like the editors at The Daily Punctilio, do not concern themselves with the accuracy of information. At the very least, they are accused of having that fault.

Ratzan and Ratzan briefly examine Handler's introduction to Snicket's so-called autobiography, but this particular paratext warrants much more attention. From the very first Kirouac 42 line, Handler stresses that he is "THE OFFICIAL REPRESENTATIVE of Lemony Snicket in all legal, literary, and social matters" (ix. emphasis in original). This assertion may be read as an attempt to reclaim his authorial identity from the publisher. Certainly, Handler is playing with the constructedness of Snicket as an author even as he affirms his own independence from that persona. Like any historiographer, Handler's version of events can—and should— be questioned.

Even he admits that, though "This book does not appear to be a forgery, [that] is not to say that the story is true—only that it is accurate" (xvii). In other words, the details of Snicket's life, like the news reported by The Daily Punctilio, are painstakingly represented in the UA even if they are entirely misrepresented at the same time. Such is the potential folly of any record of historical fact.

The Unauthorized Autobiography is filled with deception right from the start. Imbedded within the UA's introduction is a letter which was ostensibly written by the publishers. This letter, in turn, contains a diary entry, which itself retells a story from an old woman. Supposedly, the old woman had heard the story from an elderly man when she was a just a girl. This man is said to have been bequeathed a folder full of strange documents during a meeting with "an older gentleman of [his] acquaintance" (xii-xiv). This gentleman's demeanor and his membership in a highly secretive organization known for its very distinctive symbol indicate that he is none other than Snicket himself. This, presumably, is why Snicket is called "an embattled gentleman" in the verso. Meanwhile, as "a fraud," it would not be out of character for this particular gentleman to bend the truth. According to the introduction, "It is well known that one of the easiest ways to avoid the attention of one's enemies is to concoct a long, false tale about how something was passed to you by a mysterious stranger" (xv). In constructing his autobiography, Snicket may have done exactly that. Kirouac 43

Though this fact is far from plain, the narrative may not have been relayed by an old

woman at all. By comparing pages 11 and 106 with page xi of Handler's intro, a reader may

conclude that the writer of the diary is also Snicket, and it would make little sense for a courier to

pass information back to the source from which it originated. Therefore, it is entirely possible

that the lone female in the chain of custody (and possibly the only one who is not Snicket,

Handler, or an employee of HarperCollins) may be an invention. Yet it is not until page 193 of

the primary text that the old woman's narrative frame is finally closed. What this means is that all

of the text's contents before Chapter Thirteen (a chapter which consists almost entirely of

photographic images and their captions) is suspect. Furthermore, this nearly two-hundred page

long section of the book is revealed to be part of Handler's introduction and, therefore, paratext!

That L.S. is both the gentleman who supposedly passed the story to the old woman and the

author of the diary, who received the story from her, allows him to circumvent that woman's

narrative entirely. Since the bulk of the work can be attributed to the woman, it may all be

fabricated even within the context of the work itself. Given such an interpretation of the

Unauthorized Autobiography, the entire text can be characterized as a complex mind game which begins with Handler and ends with his alter ego, Lemony Snicket.

In a volume over two hundred pages long, fewer than a hundred words can be attributed

to the credited author. This is in accord with three meanings of the phrase intentional fallacy. On

one level, it represents a highly premeditated and artfully executed deception on Handler's part.

Also, given the book's title and the artifice of the "Introduction," readers have little choice but to

misinterpret Snicket's intent to write within a specific genre of nonfiction. Finally, since the core

text is so slight in comparison to the nearly all-engulfing paratext, it may be false to attribute

Snicket with any intent at all. Kirouac 44

Within the first few pages of the UA, a complaint is voiced: "Sometimes, when you are reading a book . . . you begin thinking so hard about the characters and the story that you might forget all about the author, even if he is in grave danger and would very much appreciate your help" (6). Supposedly, L.S. writes these words in reference to his being ostracized by the academic and intelligence (i.e. espionage) communities, but in light of the Introduction's annexation of the book's middle chapters, they could just as easily be attributed to Handler, in which case they might refer to HarperCollins' appropriation of his alter ego and, by extension, his authorial record. Whether the author being referred to is Snicket or Handler, this plea for aid serves as a metafictional reminder that the history being examined is nothing more than a story and that the troubles experienced by the man writing it may not be fully represented (or even fully transferable) through the text. As Adam Philips argues in the Foreword of Roland Barthes

by Roland Barthes: "it goes without saying . . . that the one thing everyone does have inside them

is an autobiography, and that they might even suffer from not telling it" (v). Yet Handler denies

his creation such an opportunity even as HarperCollins fails to afford him one.

Though Tolkien was the victim of critical misconception and misinterpretation, he was

never denied his authorial identity. Lemony Snicket is the figure of a writer who is

Unauthorized in the sense that his authorship is almost completely nullified. The faded type in

Chapter Thirteen (which is likely meant to appear as though it was produced by Snicket's

signature analog typewriter) visually expresses the weakened position of the autobiographer.

Snicket exists in the space "between the fictional world of the Baudelaires and the extratextual

world Handler inhabits" (Langbauer 503). Being the liminal voice, Snicket would make an

appropriate author of paratextual material. Yet "Handler persistently undercuts Snicket's

authority" (Langbauer 503). Despite being Handler's creation, L.S. is also an avatar for the true Kirouac 45 author's publishing company and for the often faceless print medium. In order to resist his own metaphorical death as an author, Handler employs a strategy that is similar to Tolkien's in that it destroys the façade he has created.

Whether writing under the Snicket alias or using his own name, Handler exhibits a quintessentially postmodern aesthetic. By positioning paratexts against his primary narratives, he

"writes his way out of impossible traps and desperate paradoxes" (Langbauer 515). Yet the meaning given to Handler's work does not rely entirely upon a reader's linguistic understanding; photographs, which are among the most treasured of historical artifacts, support the text as well.

Like many of the volumes analyzed by Hutcheon, UA's "text/image combinations consciously work to point to the coded nature of all cultural messages" (Politics 123, emphasis in original).

Nowhere is that more true than in the thirteenth chapter of the UA, that which can be said to be truly authored in the persona of Snicket.

If Handler's poetic plots obscure meaning, the photographs to which Snicket lends captions elucidate it—if only in the smallest of ways. It is asserted in the UA that "lyrics are not proof; photographs are" (16). As Hutcheon argues, historiographic metafiction, more than other types of fiction, lends itself toward photographic representations (Politics 47). That is because

"Illustrations, especially photographs, function in much the same manner as other paratexts in relation to the apparatus of novelistic realism" (Politics 91). Like those examined by Hutcheon, the photographs in Snicket's autobiography "are presented in the bare style of documentary realism" which can be seen as paradoxically reaffirming hegemony (of the media, for example) even as they call attention to it (Politics 126-27). Yet even the proof presented in a photograph can be hidden in plain sight.

Throughout the books attributed to L.S., as well as all of the promotional materials, the Kirouac 46

author's visage is never shown. Instead, his face is turned away or somehow otherwise obscured from view. That holds true even for photos of him as an infant (UA 21). This recurring

contrivance is part of what renders Snicket one of the most elusive and mysterious authorial

personas imaginable.

Images of L.S. typically feature other mystifying elements, as well. All of the

photographs are in black and white, which indicates that they likely predate the postmodern era,

but none are given a date. The author's style of dress and the architectural style visible in many

of the backdrops tempt the viewer to place L.S. somewhere in the early Twentieth Century, but

such evidence is inconclusive. Furthermore, assuming the bulk of Snicket's invented history occurs prior to the 1950s, some of the objects utilized over the course of the Baudelaires' story— most notably computers—become anachronistic since the latter necessarily occurs before much of the former. As a result, the order of events in Snicket's fictional life is virtually indeterminable. Yet it is possible to conclude that at least one set of materials used to form

Snicket's general history is misleading: the photographs.

Snicket seems to question the validity of several pieces of his own photographic evidence through a number of captions paired with them. These captions are essentially paratexts in relation to what is already paratextual material (or would be if not for Handler's inversion). Thus, he is "ironically playing with conventions in order to turn the apparent veracity of photography against itself" (Politics 63). In one example, each in a pair of photographs bears identical captions: ". . . could not possibly have been at the same time" (204-05). This coincidence naturally leads to a comparison of the two photos, which prove the captions to be true only by the position and dress of the subject. In one image, a man, presumably L.S., sits wearing a dark overcoat. In the other, what seems to be the same man stands and wears a light-colored suit. In Kirouac 47 both photographs, the man dons Snicket's usual dark grey hat, which calls attention to the visual contrast. Yet, since the subject's face is (as Snicket's always is) obscured, the claim of incongruity can only be based on the assumption that the man in both photographs is, indeed,

L.S. Therefore, the conclusion made by the matching captions is questionable, especially in light of the Handler/Snicket duality. In these two photos, the theme of dichotomy continues from that indicated by text and paratext, by the suggestion of total truth and absolute deception, and by the dual authors, Snicket and Handler.

In another example of paratextually-indicated photographic irony, an old pickup truck appears to speed headlong toward a factory building, and a caption labels this photograph "Very fast delivery" (204). Yet the blurring effect upon the image of the vehicle, while suggesting some type of movement, in no way proves that it is moving "very fast" at all. Furthermore, since no driver is visible behind the wheel and no freight can be seen in the bed of the truck, what appears to be delivered is deception. However, the image of a person's (presumably Snicket's) vehicle on a collision course with what is literally an industrial complex can easily be viewed as symbolic of anti-establishmentarian action. Thus, this particular photo may serve as further evidence that

Handler (who still retains primary control over Snicket's doings in text) bears a degree of ill will toward industry in general or even toward his publishers in particular.

At least one other image printed in the pages of the UA indicates that Handler harbors negative feelings for his employer. Among Snicket's collection of photographs is one of the

Tower Bridge, which is often conflated with the London Bridge since the two run parallel alongside one another (yet another duality). This photo is accompanied by a caption that reads

"Great(?) Britain" (199). The querying of the word "Great" seems to question the quality of the

U.K. as a nation and/or as a cultural center, but this line of text may have a more precise aim. As Kirouac 48 it happens, the News Building for the corporate office of HarperCollins stands at 1 London

Bridge Street in London, England. In light of that fact, and in conjunction with all of the textual evidence available across multiple media, it appears that Handler, through Snicket, is a critic of the publishing house which the two call home.

Where Lemony Snicket hides his face from the world, Daniel Handler disguises his views in plain sight. Based on an extensive review of interviews with Handler, Langbauer identifies one of the author's main purposes to be to advocate the creation of a totalized narrative (514).

Yet the author's postmodern techniques invite readers to participate in meaning-making and consider, at least temporarily, multiple interpretations. As a postmodernist, "Handler argues for the breakdown of boundaries in literature as a response to our times" (Langbauer 503). As historiographers, both Handler and Lemony Snicket do what all writers of history and fiction alike do out of necessity—they make it all up.

Kirouac 49

Conclusion: A Metafactual Review

The preceding are not the only supportable accounts of these authors' works; they are merely the ones I choose to present. Taking a postmodern tact, I assert that my analysis is valid, but I in no way warrant that it is absolutely correct.

If only that which all concerned parties accepted as truth was considered fact, no history would be recorded at all. It is the exclusion and censorship of historical accounts which result in the paginas en blanco referred to in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. No story can ever be told in its entirety, but silence is not to be desired, for in history, as in all literature, a lack of voice results in a critical lack of representation or, worse, in intentional misrepresentation. As

Barthes suggests at the end of his self-titled autobiography, an absence of narration has a totalizing effect as strong as any master narrative (179-80). Where no public record exits, the forces of hegemony are empowered to do as they will. In one of his captions, Snicket wonders

"If there's nothing out there . . ." (210). Yet a reader must explore Handler's secretive paratext to complete the question: "what was that noise?" (187). Whether the cloud of the unknown shrouds assassination squads or merely untested ideas, it is dangerous. It is far better to fill the silence with a cacophony of voices even if they can never all agree.

Just as no two minds can ever fully agree, no narrative will ever stand alone. Tolkien asserts that "there is no true end to any fairy tale" (On Fairy Stories 22). In fact, no narrative, whether it is fictional or otherwise, can ever truly end. Wherever one storyteller delivers an account, another can always continue or revise it. In some cases, authors even choose to revise their own painstakingly crafted narratives for the sake of posterity. In its role as a sequel to The

Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings serves as evidence of that fact. In its own way, Tolkien's body of work is "like the kingdom of the Geats," the setting of Beowulf, in that the "whole marvelous, Kirouac 50

intricate structure has been reared to be destroyed, that we might regret it" (Parker 609). Yet,

after LOTR, the fantasy genre was born anew. Like a creature devouring its own tail, imaginative

invention sustains itself from one age to the next.

As Ratzan and Ratzan note, the works of Lemony Snicket possess a self-consuming

geometric structure, and, as with LOTR, this is made possible by the inclusion of metafictional

paratexts. Even the tale of Oscar Wao suggests a historical scale that approaches eternity by

rejecting the question posed in its epigraph: "Of what import are brief, nameless lives . . .?" If there is an answer to that question, it is that all lives have equal value, as does every account of a given life though one may seek to invalidate another. This is a paradox, yet "the ideology of postmodernism is paradoxical, for it depends upon and draws its power from that which it contests" (Poetics 120). In postmodernist texts, and especially in works of historiographic metafiction, multiple conflicting accounts not only coexist but operate symbiotically.

Derrida argues that paratexts in fiction are "employed to destroy the old machinery to which they belong and of which they themselves are pieces" (919). It is true that these formal elements, which are traditionally incorporated into what are accepted as true histories, can seem incompatible with fiction. In the writing of history, "the formalist and the historical live side-by- side, but there is no dialectic" (Poetics 100). In historiographic metafiction, text and paratext openly oppose one another in the struggle to make meaning. They even encroach upon and sometimes occupy one another's traditional territory. Yet H.M.'s paratexts serve primarily to facilitate a kind of "postmodern intertextuality" which "directly confronts the past of literature— and of historiography, for it too derives from other texts" (Poetics 118). Paratexts are the yang to narrative's yin, and the postmodern turn on the conventions of history writing does not tear down

the mechanisms through which history is transmitted; it only introduces a new part or two to the Kirouac 51 machine. If deconstruction takes place as a result, it is purely incidental.

Since "there is not one truth about the past, only a series of versions which are dependent on and constructed by the observer rather than retrieved," the most complete—as opposed to the most effectively totalized—narrative is one which provides multiple views (Nnning 369). That can be accomplished through the artful employment of paratexts in historiographic metafiction.

Given the variety of different paratextual forms and the plethora of possible applications, paratexts are likely to continue to be among the postmodernist's favorite devices (Genette 271).

For that reason, the genre of historiographic metafiction, like history itself, has the capacity to continue ad infinitum. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The Lord of the Rings, and

Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography serve as evidence of that fact.

Kirouac 52

Glossary

Aesthetic: A system of principles concerning beauty in art.

Appendix: A paratext found at the end of a work. It may include text and/or figures.

Boethianism: A philosophy centered on the inevitability and irrevocability of events.

Bricolage: Art assembled from fragments of other representations.

Center: The cultural source of a historical narrative.

Death of the Author: Barthes's theory that authorial intent does not determine a text's meaning.

Deconstruction: A critical approach to literature which uncovers incongruities in interpretation.

Epigraph: A peritext which precedes and sets the tone for a narrative.

Epistemology: The study of the nature of knowledge.

Epitext: Any paratext which originates apart from its text (e.g. advertisements, reviews).

Footnote: A peritext printed at the bottom of a page in reference to material on that page.

Formalism: A critical approach to literature which focuses on form in relation to content.

Free Indirect Discourse: Third-person narration which reflects a character's interior self.

Grand Narrative: A single view of historical events which is largely accepted within a society.

Hegemony: The dominance asserted by one group over another.

Historiography: The study or practice of historical writing.

Humanism: A belief in mortal self determination and the opportunity for positive progress.

Intentional fallacy: The presumption of knowing an author's intent in regard to a work.

Introduction: A peritext which provides background for the text that follows it.

Master Narrative: (See Grand Narrative)

Metafiction: Fiction which examines the qualities of fiction itself.

Modernism: A literary movement which rejects the limitations imposed by polite society. Kirouac 53

Ontology: The study of the nature of existence.

Paginas en Blanco: In Spanish, "blank pages," meaning unwritten history.

Paleography: The study of ancient written language.

Paradox: An occurrence which is (or seems) incongruous with accepted truth.

Paratext: A text which serves as companion material to another one.

Peritext: A paratext which originates in the same volume as its primary text.

Persona: The identity utilized by an author for the purpose of narration.

Poetics: The aesthetic principles of a particular literary genre.

Portmanteau: A word which is an amalgam of other words (e.g. smog from smoke and fog).

Postmodernism: A literary movement which embraces all forms and genres, often mixing them.

Proto-postmodernism: The interstice between Modernism and Postmodernism.

Quotidian: That which is common or meets the status quo.

Subaltern: One rendered less by the relative power or status of another.

Totalization: The process of subordinating various narratives to one central narrative.

Verso: A peritext which commonly includes publishing and printing information.

Kirouac 54

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Kirouac 58

Vita

Education

RIAP/ERWC Certification CSU Bakersfield 09/15-Present (expected Jan. 2016) Bakersfield, CA

MA English (expected Fall 2015) CSU Bakersfield 01/14-Present Bakersfield, CA

Post-Baccalaureate Writing Certificate CSU Bakersfield 03/14-6/15 Bakersfield, CA

BA English, Economics Minor CSU Bakersfield 09/12-03/14 Bakersfield, CA

California Reading and Language Bakersfield College 01/09-05/12 Association Tutoring Certification Bakersfield, CA Level II

AA English & Communication Bakersfield College 01/08-05/12 Bakersfield, CA

Business Communication Certificate Bakersfield College 01/08-5/10 Bakersfield, CA

Teaching and Service

Instructor, English Composition CSU Bakersfield 09/15-Present Bakersfield, CA

Instructor, English CSU Bakersfield 06/15-Present Early Start Program Bakersfield, CA

TA, Teaching Assistant Program CSU Bakersfield 01/15-Present in English Bakersfield, CA

Instructional Student Assistant, CSU Bakersfield 08/14-06/15 Writing Resource Center Bakersfield, CA

Tutor, Bakersfield College Tutoring Bakersfield College 01/09-05/12 Center Bakersfield, CA

Student Ambassador, Bakersfield Bakersfield College 01/08-5/10 College Communication Department Bakersfield, CA Kirouac 59

Research and Publications

2015 Kern County Visitor Guide Kern County 01/15 "Ghost Towns" Board of Trade Bakersfield, CA

The Cultural Legacy of The Grapes of CSU Bakersfield 11/14 Wrath (75th Anniversary Conference) Bakersfield, CA "Armenian Joads: Life, Death, and Diaspora in the Works of William Saroyan"

Orpheus Volume XXXIII CSU Bakersfield 09/14 "Upon a 2nd Reading of Lear," Bakersfield, CA "[7/10] Split," "The Monumental," "About Time," "Exchanges between 'a wise man and a fool': A Reversal of Roles in King Lear"

Theatre of New Voices CSU Bakersfield 05/14 "Spaghetti" Bakersfield, CA

Gender Matters Conference CSU Bakersfield 05/13 and Symposium Bakersfield, CA "The Form of Identity: Formalism and Gender in Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman"

Affiliations

Write On! at CSUB President 08/15-Present Co-founder and Treasurer 04/15-08/15

California Association of Teachers 02/15-Present of English

Sigma Tau Delta International English Honor Society Vice President, Executive Board, Xi Tau Chapter 04/15-Present Member 04/14-Present

Kirouac 60

Alpha Chi 04/14-Present National College Honor Society

Bakersfield College Tutoring Club 08/09-05/12