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The Agency of Characters Who Read in the Fiction of Ali Smith

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The Agency of Characters Who Read in the Fiction of Ali Smith ‘LEAV(ING) ROOM FOR THE READER’: THE AGENCY OF CHARACTERS WHO READ IN THE FICTION OF ALI SMITH Jessica Orr A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 2019 Full metadata for this thesis is available in St Andrews Research Repository at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this thesis: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/18826 This item is protected by original copyright This item is licensed under a Creative Commons License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 ‘Leav(ing) Room for the Reader’: The Agency of Characters who Read in the Fiction of Ali Smith Jessica Orr This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at the University of St Andrews June 2019 Candidate's declaration I, Jessica Orr, do hereby certify that this thesis, submitted for the degree of PhD, which is approximately 79,778 words in length, has been written by me, and that it is the record of work carried out by me, or principally by myself in collaboration with others as acknowledged, and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for any degree. I was admitted as a research student at the University of St Andrews in September 2015. I received funding from an organisation or institution and have acknowledged the funder(s) in the full text of my thesis. Date Signature of candidate Supervisor's declaration I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of PhD in the University of St Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. Date Signature of supervisor Permission for publication In submitting this thesis to the University of St Andrews we understand that we are giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. We also understand, unless exempt by an award of an embargo as requested below, that the title and the abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker, that this thesis will be electronically accessible for personal or research use and that the library has the right to migrate this thesis into new electronic forms as required to ensure continued access to the thesis. I, Jessica Orr, confirm that my thesis does not contain any third-party material that requires copyright clearance. The following is an agreed request by candidate and supervisor regarding the publication of this thesis: Printed copy No embargo on print copy. Electronic copy No embargo on electronic copy. Date Signature of candidate Date Signature of supervisor Underpinning Research Data or Digital Outputs Candidate's declaration I, Jessica Orr, hereby certify that no requirements to deposit original research data or digital outputs apply to this thesis and that, where appropriate, secondary data used have been referenced in the full text of my thesis. Date Signature of candidate Table of Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 1 I. The Embodied Reader ................................................................................................................ 48 Like ................................................................................................................................................. 79 Trees ............................................................................................................................................... 97 II. The Dialogic Reader ............................................................................................................... 114 Artful ............................................................................................................................................ 137 Oral Storytelling ....................................................................................................................... 154 III. The Reader as a Spectator ................................................................................................... 172 The Accidental ........................................................................................................................... 189 How to be both .......................................................................................................................... 216 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 235 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................... 243 Abstract This thesis argues that characters who read are a recurring preoccupation in the work of contemporary Scottish writer Ali Smith, who foregrounds the act of reading as equal to, if not more important than, the act of writing itself. It begins by examining aspects of Smith’s own personal history as a reader, and establishing a critical framework for understanding this identification through two reader-response perspectives: Louise Rosenblatt’s The Reader, The Text, The Poem and Wolfgang Iser’s The Act of Reading. These ideas counterpoint portrayals of reading as a passive and subordinate activity, as propagated by schools of thinking such as the New Criticism, and transform it into one of agency and participation. The three following chapters further evidence this re- conceptualisation of the reader’s role, drawing on different critical perspectives to examine more nuanced aspects of Smith’s representation. Firstly, ‘The Embodied Reader’ considers the – often explosive - physicality of the reader’s experience in the novels Like and Autumn, drawing on three key essays by the feminist critic Hélène Cixous: ‘Sorties: Out and Out: Attacks/Ways Out/Forays’, ‘Difficult Joys’ and ‘Coming to Writing’, which similarly conceptualise reading and writing as visceral activities driven by bodily impulses and desires. Secondly, ‘The Dialogic Reader’ focusses on readers’ narrative interventions in Artful and several of Smith’s short stories, drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism in his essay ‘Discourse in the novel’ to suggest that the disruptive voice of the reader works to challenge the prevailing authority of the text. Thirdly, ‘The Reader as a Spectator’ considers characters who engage with contemporary visual technologies as part of a broader conception of who might be considered a ‘reader’ in Smith’s work. Supported by critical perspectives such as Laura Mulvey’s Death 24x a Second and Mary Ann Doane’s The Emergence of Cinematic Time, this chapter argues that the adolescent protagonists of The Accidental and How to be both are encouraged to take similar control over what they see, as with what they read. Acknowledgements To the Arts and Humanities Research Council, for funding this research, and to the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities, for providing invaluable internship, training and networking opportunities. To the School of English at the University of St Andrews, and to the team at CAPOD and elsewhere at the university, for teaching opportunities, training and support. To Susan Sellers, for her kind supervision and careful guidance throughout the research process, especially her scrutinising edit. To the Glasgow Women’s Library, for trusting me with ambitious projects and for providing a nourishing and supportive environment in which to grow. To Ali Smith, for her endless joy and encouragement – both in page and in person - and for granting me permission to undertake this research in the first place. I hope my words have been as hospitable to you as yours have been to me. 1 Introduction This thesis is concerned with the ways in which the contemporary Scottish writer Ali Smith foregrounds readers as characters in her novels and short stories, depicting them as active and participatory agents in the generation of textual meaning. Notable examples of such characters include Amy and Ash in her first novel Like, Melissa in the short story ‘Text for the day’, the un-named narrator in the part-fiction, part-lecture series Artful, and her semi-biographical account of the poet Olive Fraser in Shire.1 Beyond these examples, references to the act of reading can be found throughout Smith’s fiction, demonstrating the significance she places on this activity and her desire to present it as equal to, if not more important than, the act of writing itself. Such depictions challenge the portrayal of readers as passive recipients who are subordinate to authorial control, as had become popular within literary criticism in the middle decades of the twentieth century, and transform them into engaged participants who interrupt, question and rewrite the texts they encounter. As will be explored throughout this study, the personal and even wider social implications of this transformation of the reader’s role are highly significant in Smith’s work, as characters discover increased agency not only in their encounters with books, but in their lives beyond the texts they read. This reflects her belief that: ‘We don’t just read books, we read everything. We need to be able to read character and read a situation to be able to survive’.2 Consequently, it becomes clear
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