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Postmodern Nostalgias of J. G Ballard and Douglas Coupland

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Postmodern Nostalgias of J. G Ballard and Douglas Coupland Anywhere But Here: The Competing (and Complementary) Postmodern Nostalgias of J. G Ballard and Douglas Coupland A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Alexis Paknadel BA (Hons), MA Supervisor: Dr. Andrew Tate Department of English and Creative Writing Lancaster University May 2011 ProQuest Number: 11003573 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11003573 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Table of Contents Declaration ................................................................................................................ i Acknowledgments .....................................................................................................ii Abstract..................................................................................................................... iii List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................v 1. Introduction: Varieties of Postmodern Nostalgia ................................................. 1 2. Coulrophobia and Calenture: J.G. Ballard and Colonial Nostalgia .......................50 3. Wagons West: North American Frontier Nostalgia .............................................. 103 4. ‘Everyone Pretend To Be Normal’ - The Resilience of Suburban Nostalgia 143 5. The Plastic Madeleine: Nostalgic Objects and Consumer Culture ..................... 191 6. ‘It’s The End of the World As We Know It, And I Feel Fine’: Apocalyptic Nostalgia.................................................... 247 7. Conclusion: Irony Lost, Nostalgia Regained? ...................................................... 306 8. Bibliography .......................................................................................................... 331 Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis and the work reported herein was composed by and originated entirely from me. Information derived from the published and unpublished work of others has been acknowledged in the text and references are given in the list of sources. Acknowledgments I would like to thank the following for their generosity and forbearance during the composition of the following work: Dr. Polly Atkin, Dr. Brian Baker, Prof. Fred Botting, Dr. Arthur Bradley, Clare Brindley, Ollie Brindley, Daragh Carville, Stephen Curtis, Andy Diggle, Peter Finn, Ellie Fitton, Dr. George Green, Paul Harrison-Davies, Alex Hope, Dr. Kate Horsley, Dr. Lia Kinane, Andrew King, Lindsey King, Megan King, Ian Martin, Duncan McGechie, Anthony Mercer, Dr. Lindsey Moore, Simon Nash, Dr. Saleel Nurbhai, Sophie O’Reirdan, Natalie Paknadel, Evelyn Pepper, Mark Price, Jim Reeve, Kathryn Robinson-Price, Eddie Robson, Jimmy Rotherham, Dr. Katy Shaw, Abbe Snow, Adam Snow, Dr. Andrew Tate, Aidan Tolhurst, Anita Whitehead, Dr. Harry Whitehead, Laurent Wright, Adam York-Gregory. I would also like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for part-funding this project. I dedicate this work to my Mother and Father, who were always there when I came to. Abstract This thesis addresses postmodern nostalgia in the fictions of J.G. Ballard and Douglas Coupland. By reading them alongside the work of Svetlana Boym, Fredric Jameson, Walter Benjamin and Linda Hutcheon among others, it firstly builds upon and questions Boym’s categories of restorative and reflective nostalgia. By taking two authors whose work chronologically straddles the postmodern moment to date, the thesis also demonstrates that nostalgia is one issue over which any consideration of postmodernism as a monadic cultural paradigm can be problematised. It proceeds from the supposition that early postmodern fiction is decidedly anti- nostalgic in tone, whereas recent examples are characterised by a less militant perspective. By placing the authors’ texts in dialogue with each other, the piece emphasises nostalgia’s ineradicability and its hidden role in anti-nostalgic agendas. To support these claims, the thesis argues that nostalgia is not an indivisible phenomenon. Alighting on and defined by objects which can be set against each other, nostalgia is often pitted against itself in other forms, presupposing a multitude of mutually hostile nostalgias. The nostalgic objects on which the thesis focuses are: colonialism, the North American frontier, the Suburbs, nostalgic consumer objects and Apocalypse. These have been selected over other foci because they are the most pervasive themes in the work of both authors. Colonialism and the North American frontier are exceptions as they are rarely directly pitted against each another in the authors’ work. However, they both serve to ground the nostalgic perspectives of both writers, and as such are addressed separately in chapters devoted to a single author. The concluding chapter focuses on the role postmodern irony plays in Ballard and Coupland’s work. Explicitly combating nostalgia, irony is exposed as an integral component of any contemporary nostalgic narrative, potentially refining it in the service of a more circumspect contemporary nostalgic. List of Abbreviations Works by Douglas Coupland AFAP ......................................................................................All Families are Psychotic ER .............................................................................................................. Eleanor Rigby GA ................................................................................................................ Generation A GX ........................................................ Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture GC ................................................................................................... Girlfriend in a Coma HN Hey! Nostradamus JP ............................................................................................................................... JPod LG ............................................................................................................. Life After God MS .....................................................................................................................Microserfs MW ............................................................................................................ Miss Wyoming PO ....................................................................................................................Player One PFD ....................................................................................... Polaroids From The Dead SP ............................................................................................................ Shampoo Planet SOC Souvenir o f Canada SO C 2 .............................................................................................. Souvenir o f Canada 2 GT ............................................................................................................. The Gum Thief Works by J.G. Ballard C l............................................................................................................ Concrete Island ES Empire o f the Sun HA ............................................................................................................. Hello America KC .............................................................................................................Kingdom Come v i MP ..................................................................................................... Millennium People MoL ......................................................Miracles o f Life: From Shanghai to Shepperton RW .............................................................................................................. Running Wild RP .................................................................................................... Rushing to Paradise AE ..................................................................................................The Atrocity Exhibition CW .......................................................................................................The Crystal World TDC ................................................................................................. The Day o f Creation TD ..................................................................................................................The Drought DW ................................................................................................... The Drowned World KW ............................................................................................... The Kindness o f Women UDC ...............................................................................The Unlimited Dream Company WFN .......................................................................................... The Wind From Nowhere Paknadel 1 1. Introduction: The Varieties of Postmodern Nostalgia Memory is distinguished from the merely reproductive power of imagination in that it is able to reproduce the former representations voluntarily, so that the mind is not
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