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Glimpses of Utopia: Celebration and queer temporality vs. the tragic gay narrative in post-Stonewall gay fiction James Armando Dickson A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the MA Degree The University of Oslo November 2018 II Glimpses of Utopia: Celebration and queer temporality vs. the tragic gay narrative in post-Stonewall gay fiction James Armando Dickon III © James Armando Dickson 2018 Glimpses of Utopia: celebration and queer temporality versus the tragic gay narrative in post- Stonewall gay literary fiction James Armando Dickson http://www.duo.uio.no/ Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo IV Abstract In response to Garth Greenwell’s claims that Hanya Yanagihara’s 2015 novel A Little Life is a subversive work of gay literary fiction due to its queer negativity and melodrama, I assert that tragedy has dominated the gay literary narrative over the past one hundred years. While acknowledging that tragedy is a warranted response to disastrous events in queer history, with the AIDS epidemic being my more frequent reference point, I intend to prove that what I describe as “celebratory narratives” are in fact more subversive. Celebratory narratives are distinguished by the ways they subvert heteronormative expectations and life patterns through humour, the reflection of contemporary or historical queer culture, and the ways in which they depict community, comradery and affection between queer people. To deepen my analysis, I have looked to Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the carnivalesque as a subversive literary mode, which I use as a framework to analyse two works of celebratory gay fiction. As my thesis progresses, I expand upon this framework by including recent theories of queer utopia. I also draw upon Judith/Jack Halberstam’s theories on queer temporality to show how the use of time and space in celebratory gay fiction responds to significant moments in queer culture and history. I also engage with Lee Edelman’s theory of queer negativity, mostly in relation to how queer utopia acts as an alternate perspective on queer continuation and ideas of the future, but also the ways in which Edelman’s theory is misunderstood. In my first main chapter, I examine the ways in which celebration is manifested in Andrew Holleran’s first novel Dancer from the Dance (1978) and its disappearance from his later, post-AIDS work, Grief (2006). I also examine the ways in which the celebration of gay subculture creates ‘parallel realities’ between queer and heterosexual existence and how it changes in a post-AIDS setting, both in regard to the devastation of the gay community and the advancement of gay rights. In my second chapter, I compare the trajectory of tragic narratives in gay literary fiction to those in gay young adult fiction, and discuss the effect that the first work of celebratory gay young adult fiction, David Levithan’s Boy Meets Boy (2003), has had on this subcategory of fiction. To do so, I draw upon the framework from my first chapter and include recent theories of queer utopia. Lastly, I use the ideas that I have developed in the first two chapters to analyse the ways in which A Little Life not only fails to be subversive, but reinforces what I believe to be a troubling status quo in contemporary gay fiction. In particular, I look at the ways in which the novel creates a liberal setting divorced from queer history to manipulate the reader, in addition to the excessive tragedy that befalls V the main character. Both of these, I believe, are problematic in the context of the history of gay literary fiction. VI VII Acknowledgments I would like to thank most of all my thesis adviser, Nils Axel Nissen. Before I took his class on homoromantic literature in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, then another on post-Stonewall gay fiction, I had very little knowledge about the history of LGBT literature and had read comparatively few works. I now take great delight in sharing that knowledge whenever I can in my work as an activist. I have not yet ceased to enjoy the amazement and sense of validation it brings to people who were unaware of the rich literature that represents our community. Nils then took on the role of my thesis advisor not once, but twice, after a long but necessary break in my studies. Each time my ideas and writing were met with patience, support and encouragement. My husband of five years and partner of ten, Alexander, deserves credit for his encouragement, support and keeping me caffeinated. My mother, Linda, for telling me to go back and finish this degree. And my father, Armando, for insisting I attend university in the first place. And to Syd, my beloved Basset Artesian, who picked the perfect time to fall sick less than two months before the final deadline. It kept life interesting. Lastly, to the queer movers, shakers, and thinkers both past and present who influenced this thesis. In reference to a work by one of the author’s in this thesis: I tried, at least, to make more than dust. VIII Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1 1 “We would not stop dancing”: queer celebration and parallel realities in Dancer from the Dance and their disappearance in Grief ................................................................................... 10 2 “What a wonderful world”: Boy Meets Boy’s utopic vision, subversion, and the rejuvenation of gay young adult literature ............................................................................... 31 3 Outside of Queer Time: narrative manipulation, ahistoricity and the prevalence of the tragic narrative in A Little Life ........................................................................................................... 54 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 77 Works Cited .............................................................................................................................. 82 IX Introduction After taking an engaging class in post-Stonewall gay literary fiction one semester, I began to observe a certain reoccurrence: out of the eight books on our syllabus, six included either a dead main character, a dead secondary character, but all of them dealt with some sort of tragedy. This wasn’t surprising. Another class I had taken many years earlier on homoromantic literature in the nineteenth and early twentieth century revealed that one, two out of the four the books concerning homoromantic male pairings ended in death. My investigations into material that wasn’t on either syllabus didn’t fare much better. Men loving men had always existed in literary fiction, but even in liberal periods in history, gay literary narratives relied on subtext, or existed as romantic friendships. There was, however, a price to pay for its existence. I knew, of course, that this was not always a purposeful artistic choice. Tragedy has been the condition for the queer narrative’s existence in the first place, impressed upon authors by publishers and societal attitudes at large. That’s not to say there have been no examples of gay literary fiction where the character or characters in question survive. Such novels have existed more and more often from the early twentieth century onwards. They did, however, tend to be received poorly by critics and occasionally to the detriment of their authors. Bertram Cope’s Year is one such example, with Henry Blake Fuller having to essentially self-publish and his reputation affected afterwards, and Maurice by E.M. Forster us another, written in 1913-14 but published posthumously in 1971 out of fear of some kind of reprisal. I am also well aware that global gay communities have faced incredible historical obstacles in the past century and continue to do so despite the decriminalization of homosexuality in many countries and relaxation in social attitudes in the past fifty years. It would be absurd to insist they should not be reflected in literary fiction. Tragedy, I also realise, does not necessarily make for bad literature. However, this line of questioning truly reached a peak moment when I first read Hanya Yanagihara’s 2015 novel A Little Life. I was curious why the author had chosen to write a novel where her protagonist is exposed to a life of protracted misery and suffering and I was left more curious still to realise this had all been a purposeful choice to manipulate the reader’s emotions. This effect was what contributed to its vast readership and nomination for several prestigious literary prizes. Yet I had been left unphased. On reading the criticism, I was especially perturbed when I read Garth Greenwell’s critical support, heralding it as ‘the great gay novel,’ and stating it to be a subversive work of 1 fiction due to its portrayal of “the social and emotional lives of gay men,” but also its extended depictions of queer suffering. Subversive, as I have always understood the word, means undermining the status quo. Surely, I reasoned, a literary history that overwhelmingly portrays the death and suffering of male characters cannot be subverted by more of the same. Although Greenwell was the only critic to argue that A Little Life was a work of gay fiction, others noticed the same-sex relationships but never questioned the treatment of gay characters and history. I cannot presume to know