Clay Manor Or Né Hecatonchire by Marie Lévi-Bosko: a Novel By
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Clay Manor or né Hecatonchire by Marie Lévi-Bosko: a Novel by Michael Yip A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English Department of English and Film Studies University of Alberta © Michael Yip, 2014 Abstract Clay Manor gazes inwards at the academic strictures governing the contents of its writing. Clay Manor suggests, through self-reference, that critically-conscious writing exhibits symptoms of melancholy narcissism. In this novel, “Revenue” (a caricature of literary institute), commissions its employees to fetch the “taxes” (memoirs) of a homeowner on McHugh Bluff in Calgary, Alberta. Revenue’s protocols demand that taxes adhere to traditions of the classical novel. Characters inside the house, however, willfully disregard local folkways and thus accumulate back taxes while upholding their dream sequence. Revenue’s employees, “taxmen” (literary scholars), do not receive their payday unless they file paperwork for their commissions. In frustration, the taxman assigned to McHugh Bluff forges the homeowner’s taxes himself. The taxman names his paperwork after the house: “Clay Manor”, and discovers that the surreal lifestyles inside will not accord to literary conventions such as moral order, chronology, or language. Clay Manor uses metafiction to juxtapose the didactic aims of theory against the descriptive aims of story. Clay Manor performs the inward gaze of melancholia thus restricting its own avenues for narrative in order to critique the academic thesis as a mode of authorship. ii Acknowledgements Christine Stewart and Thomas Wharton, first and first, for asking the toughest questions. Without them asking “What it Means?” Clay Manor never would have teetered. If any giggles echo through the greeting room, much of it belongs to them. Marie Lévi-Bosko first and second. Clay Manor doesn’t actually lean out from the bluff in Calgary, but Clay Manor stands on shindigs of real teachers and friends who live, work, or have visited the city. Many of the people who helped me build this house are members of the very institutes I claim to undermine but actually have much to learn from. Professors Suzette Mayr, Robert Majzels, Christian Bök, and Joshua Lobb have choice seating in Clay Manor’s dining hall. The More Soup (than man) Writing Troupe spent many Wednesday evenings in a ruckus over something someone wrote that no one else could understand. The alcohol and cookies we were eating ended up inside this novel. Many thanks to Holden Baker, Andrew Barbero, Emily Chin, Deep Gill, Preet Gill, Simon Jackson, Kye Kocher, Marc Lynch, Steven Peters, and Dan Thorn amongst others. Natalie Simpson’s get-togethers at the Kensington pub shined my Sundays. Thanks to Jason Christie, Aaron Giovannone, Jani Krulc, Colin Martin, and Natalie Simpson for listening to Edith when she said “Follow Me.” I once brought Clay Manor with me on a road trip. Kathleen Brown, Jake Kennedy, Claire Lacey, kevin macpherson eckoff, Sandy Pool, and Indra Singh know what that looks like. Many others stand on the rhombi out back. Join them. Dance or something. iii to Marie Lévi-Bosko, if I don’t as a joke but also to Darren Chang—as another joke iv The Recipe Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... iii Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... iv This Recipe ...................................................................................................................................... v Exegesis .........................................................................................................................................vii Clay Manor, or né Hecatonchire February 1. Clay Manor Introduces Itself .......................................................................................................1 2. What are taxes? not How to pay them? .....................................................................................10 3. the Cat Behind Clay Manor .......................................................................................................16 4. She in the Sunhat, or an Afterword ...........................................................................................28 5. Siobhan Frye is Marie Lévi-Bosko’s Daughter .........................................................................36 March 6. Marie and Siobhan visit Ashley at the Hospital.........................................................................46 7. Interestman: a Name the Taxman thinks up for Himself ...........................................................53 8. Ouaknin: his Kitten from Earlier, Who Does Not Speak Our Language ...................................59 9. James Briar, the Centipede, is This Story’s Hecatonchire ........................................................65 10. Marie Stole Gaspard’s Briefcase; She Flips Through His Paperwork and . ........................73 April 11. Beast Features: starring Vincent Clay and James, with Ashley and Others ............................81 12. Gaspard Hobbes and Gaspard Hobbes ...................................................................................102 13. Marie Flips through the Outer Narrative and Loses her Sunhat ............................................110 14. Siobhan’s Made Friends outside Clay Manor, she thinks that . ........................................117 15. P. Briefman, Gaspard Hobbes, Gaspard Hobbes, and . .....................................................121 v May 16. Clay Manor Introduces Michael Yip .....................................................................................128 17. PAGES “SO AND SO” .................................................................................................................136 †. Intermission, and the Eighteenth Chapter ................................................................................149 19. “Mister Hungers” ...................................................................................................................156 20. Née Fiancée ...........................................................................................................................161 June 21. “That Detective” ....................................................................................................................169 22. Gaspard’s Jamboree ...............................................................................................................175 23. Missus Quits Eating ...............................................................................................................180 24. Diabolus ex Domus ................................................................................................................187 25. a Sunny Solstice, a July Deadline ..........................................................................................193 July 26. Teeters the Tour Guide ..........................................................................................................199 27. Nail House .............................................................................................................................205 28. Siobhan Carries On ................................................................................................................208 29. the Ghost and the Garbage Bags ............................................................................................212 30. Theophilus: his Kitten from Earlier, Who Did Speak Our Language ....................................217 a Year on August Afterword, or Chapter Ninety-Three ...........................................................................................222 another Bibliography ...................................................................................................................224 vi Exegesis: The Taxman Stole My Introduction The taxman stole my introduction. He reads it to other characters as part of the story on PAGES “SO AND SO” (chapter 17). He passes it off as his own work. The bastard. That bastard Gaspard Hobbes. He’s left me only a bibliography. a Bibliography Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: Norton, 2001. p1466-1470. Print. Freud, Sigmund. “Mourning and Melancholia.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works. Trans. James Strachey et al. Vol 14. London: Hogarth, 1957. p243-58. Print. Hutcheon, Linda. Narcissistic Narrative: the metafictional paradox. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 1980. Print. McCaffery, Larry. “The art of metafiction.” Metafiction. Ed. Mark Currie. London: Longman, 1995. p181-93. Print. Shklovsky, Victor. “Art as Technique”. 1916. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Second Ed. Eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 2004. Print. Waugh, Patricia. Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. London: Routledge, 2003. Print. vii 1. Clay Manor Introduces Itself Clay Manor inches its door ajar. Clinks its chain rigid. A taxman strolls up the walk. He stays his finger from the bell. Should bang out the cold, he thinks—and as