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Dunster, Ruth M. (2010) the Abyss of Calvino's Deconstructive Writing: an Apology for Non-Foundational Theology

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Dunster, Ruth M. (2010) the Abyss of Calvino's Deconstructive Writing: an Apology for Non-Foundational Theology Dunster, Ruth M. (2010) The abyss of Calvino's deconstructive writing: an apology for non-foundational theology. MTh(R) thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1961/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] The Abyss of Calvino’s deconstructive writing: An apologetic for Non-foundational Theology. Ruth M. Dunster M. Th. Thesis University of Glasgow Centre for the Study of Literature, Theology and the Arts April 2010 © Ruth M. Dunster 2010 Abstract This thesis argues that the later works of Italo Calvino function as an apologetic for a non-foundational theology. Calvino’s two late novels Invisible Cities and If on a winter’s night a traveller are viewed as embodiments of self-deconstructing rhetoric. Calvino’s essays offer a literary theory which is practised in these novels to lead to an expression of aporetic epistemology. This technique of ironic reflexivity is described as a rhetoric of the abyss. This becomes an apologetic for a theology of postmodernism when If on a winter’s night a traveller is viewed in terms of its treatment of the death of the author, because its application to theology is shown in a parallel to the historical process of secularisation. Similarly, Invisible Cities is offered as an apologetic for non- foundational theology because by embodying an exercise in rhetorical self criticism it becomes, for the reader, an experience of epistemological de-stabilisation. Reader- response criticism is the framework which makes this possible. An allegorical model of reading Invisible Cities is offered in viewing Marco Polo as a Heideggerean counsellor who supports his interlocutor, Kublai Khan, to explore the inadequacy of a metaphysical mastery in terms of western concepts of imperialism and philosophical absolutism. The counsel offered is compared to the concept of gift as being without Being, and grace as icon, in Jean-Luc Marion’s God Without Being. The equation of the rhetoric of abyss with Tillich’s God as ground and abyss is viewed as inadequate. The argument is made that instead, a careful reading of Calvino’s rhetoric creates an appreciation of the reasons for accepting the radical a-theology of faith put forward by the work of Thomas J.J. Altizer and John Caputo. Its ethical consequences are aligned to the argument made in Mark C. Taylor’s After God, for religion as a complex adaptive system with ethical and social responsibilities. Finally , following on from the pastoral concern of the Polo-Khan dialogue and briefly discussing Calvino’s novel Mr Palomar, links are made to the issue of autism as a spectrum of universal human problem and opportunity, and to the model of the 12 step recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous as a secular spiritual praxis. The idea of nomadic theology is suggested as a possible response. i Table of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................... ii List of figures ............................................................................... v Notes and Abbreviations ................................................................. vi Acknowledgements ...................................................................... viii Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction ...................................................................... 1 1.2 Oulipo and Iconoclasm .......................................................... 4 1.3 Methodology ...................................................................... 6 1.4 Context ............................................................................ 7 1.4.1 Calvino as intellettuale impegnato ...................................... 7 1.4.2 Aesthetics .................................................................. 11 1.4.3 Myth and fable in Calvino’s work ....................................... 12 1.5 Critical receptions of Calvino’s work ........................................ 14 2 Chapter 2 The Abyss in Calvino’s project ..................................... 17 2.1 La Tromba delle scale.......................................................... 17 2.2 Hermeneutics as abyss ......................................................... 20 2.3 A Framework for Calvino’s Hermeneutics ................................... 22 2.4 Calvino as deconstructivist .................................................... 25 3 If on a winter’s night a traveller as abyss ..................................... 27 3.1 The Plot Structure of Winter’s Night ........................................ 29 3.2 The Reader’s Journey .......................................................... 33 3.3 The Reader (Female) ........................................................... 36 3.4 The Tortured Writer ............................................................ 37 3.5 The Death of the Author ....................................................... 38 3.6 ‘Messenger or Thief’ ........................................................... 39 3.7 Printing and error. .............................................................. 43 3.8 Felix Culpa ....................................................................... 44 3.9 Winters Night and the Divine Comedy ....................................... 44 3.10 The Non-actor as erased voice................................................ 49 3.11 Tropes of the Abyss and erasure in WN ..................................... 51 4 Chapter 4 - Invisible Cities as Abyss ............................................. 53 4.1 City and Civilisation ............................................................ 53 4.2 Invisible Cities as parable ..................................................... 56 4.3 How does IC embody (self-)criticism? ....................................... 59 4.4 Metaphor and Metonymy ...................................................... 60 4.5 The Chess Board and creative opening ...................................... 61 4.6 New Worlds ...................................................................... 63 4.7 Intentional States ............................................................... 64 4.8 Poetic Dwelling ................................................................. 65 4.9 Cities as liturgical objects - The dislodging of ontology .................. 67 4.10 ‘Moods, elegies, states of grace.’ ............................................ 68 4.11 Patterns in the Cities .......................................................... 71 4.11.1 Reading Invisible Cities ................................................... 73 4.11.2 The City Reports ........................................................... 77 4.12 Cities as riddles ................................................................. 78 4.12.1 Cities and memory (CM) .................................................. 78 4.12.2 Cities and Desire (CD) .................................................... 78 4.12.3 Cities and Signs (CSi) ..................................................... 80 4.12.4 Thin Cities (ThC) .......................................................... 82 4.12.5 Trading Cities (TrC) ....................................................... 84 4.12.6 Cities and Eyes (CE) ....................................................... 86 iii 4.12.7 Cities and Names (CN) .................................................... 89 4.12.8 Cities and the Dead (CDe) ............................................... 91 4.12.9 Cities and the Sky (CSk) .................................................. 92 4.12.10 Continuous Cities (CC) ................................................. 94 4.12.11 Hidden Cities (HC) ...................................................... 95 5 Chapter 5 - Polo as Counsellor ................................................... 97 5.1.1 Introduction ................................................................ 97 5.1.2 Possession .................................................................. 98 5.1.3 Certainty ................................................................... 99 5.1.4 Totality .................................................................... 102 5.1.5 Substance .................................................................. 103 5.1.6 Ontological Stability ..................................................... 106 5.1.7 God “under erasure” .................................................... 107 5.1.8 The Gift .................................................................... 107 6 Chapter 6 - Conclusion .......................................................... 109 6.1 Calvino and Blanchot .......................................................... 109 6.2 Calvino, Tillich, Altizer. ...................................................... 110 6.2.1 Grigg’s reading of Calvino and Tillich ................................. 110 6.2.2 Franke’s Reading of Calvino as postmodernist ....................... 113 6.2.3 Calvino Engagé: Reading as Resistance ............................... 115 6.2.4 Obremski’s
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