THE ARCHITECTURAL VOID : Space as Transgression in Postmodern Short Fiction of the Fantastic (1974- 2010) A thesis submitted for the award of Philosophiae Doctor Presented to Dublin City University Academic Year 2013 By Patricia García Comparative Literature School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies Dublin City University Ireland Supervisors: Mr. Jean-Philippe Imbert, Dublin City University Dr. David Roas, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona External Examiner: Dr. Dale Knickerbocker, East Carolina University Internal Examiner: Dr. Brigitte Lejuez, Dublin City University DECLARATION I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for assessment on the programme of study leading to the award of Philosophiae Doctor is entirely my own work, that I have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the work is original, and does not to the best of my knowledge breach any law of copyright, and has not been taken from the work of others save and to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work. Signed: Patricia García ID No.: 56212863 Date: 10 th of December 2012 2 This thesis is dedicated to my parents, who provided its foundations from beginning to end. 3 ABSTRACT THE ARCHITECTURAL VOID: SPACE AS TRANSGRESSION IN POSTMODERN SHORT FICTION OF THE FANTASTIC (1974-2010) Patricia García This doctoral thesis looks at the relationship between narrative space and Postmodern manifestations of the fantastic short story. The Fantastic is viewed here as distinct from other non-mimetic forms such as fantasy or science fiction, and understood as an incursion of an impossible element within a realistic frame shared by narrator and reader. The importance of narrative space in the construction of textual verisimilitude has been recurrently emphasised, especially after the so-called Spatial Turn in literary studies. However, whereas this relation between space and mimetic effect has received considerable scholarly attention, the relation between space and fantastic effect has to date not been appropriately explored, neither within the emerging field of Geocriticism nor in theoretical and thematic studies on the Fantastic. This thesis fills the existing gap, through the exploration of how narrative space is employed to disrupt the realistic effect of the literary text. The fantastic transgression becomes a phenomenon arising from narrative space. The frequently asked question of ‘Where does the supernatural take place?’ is substituted by those of ‘What fantastic event does space provoke? How is it rhetorically constructed? And what are its interpretations?’ To answer these questions and illustrate that this phenomenon is transnational, this study necessarily needs a comparative angle including texts from diverse socio- cultural traditions. Although textual precedents can be found, a central proposition here is that the unprecedented presence of this phenomenon is unique to the Postmodern Fantastic. Fourteen sample short stories written between 1974 and 2010 are presented as archetypical of this phenomenon and have been analysed under the light of literary theory, while also drawing from spatial theories developed in fields such as anthropology, sociology, physics and architecture. This selected corpus serves as a model for systematising literary space as transgression, structured in four chapters: ‘body’, ‘boundary’, ‘hierarchy’ and ‘world’. Paralleling narrative with an architectural piece, these four suggested categories are four basic spatial ‘steps’ in the architectural configuration of any literary work. They are four spatial principles of any realistic text, which at the same time derive from the four fundamental phenomenological and philosophical aspects of human spatiality. 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people I would like to thank for making this project possible. First of all, my kindest acknowledgements go to both my supervisors Jean-Philippe Imbert and David Roas for their patience and generosity all this time. They have shown to me that academic research can always be taken with a sense of humor. Their energy on this project has been a fundamental referent for me; without their professional and personal support, this thesis would certainly have been a much less creative and enriching experience. I would also like to thank my home institution, Dublin City University, in particular the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies, and also the Irish Research Council for trusting this project with funding. I am also very grateful to all those authors with whom I have been in contact throughout these years, who showed their enthusiasm and even provided me with their original works by email and post. Among them are Jean-Paul Beaumier, Cristina Fernández Cubas, Ángel Olgoso and Claude- Emmanuelle Yance. I appreciate the help of the publishing house L’Instant Même for putting me in contact with some of their published authors. Furthermore, I would like to thank Jacques Finné (Universität Zürich) and Jean Marigny (Université de Grenoble), Norbert Spehner (editor of Marginalia ), and Frederick Tygstrup (University of Copenhagen) for their helpful feedback regarding my subject of research. I am immensely grateful to all those friends who suggested critical readings and literary texts and encouraged philosophical debates. Special thanks go to Adrián for introducing me to the world of quantum physics and for his ability to always draw bridges across disciplines; to José and to Azra for being a model reader of my work, and to Basia and María for making research a much less lonely activity. I also very much appreciate the support of all those friends and family who provided me with a change of scenery, generously offering me their houses in different countries during times of study and writing. And I remember with gratitude all those friends who provided me with nothing but constant support throughout this research. Finally, my most special and warmest thanks go to my parents for their invaluable practical help as personal secretaries every time I was in need of quotations, books or documents (which was very often), and most importantly, for not expecting anything from this research other than it making me happy. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 10 CHAPTER I. TOWARDS A THEORISATION OF THE FANTASTIC TRANSGRESSION AS A PHENOMENON OF SPACE ........................................................................... 24 1. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SPACE AND THE FANTASTIC ..................... 25 1.1. Delimiting the Fantastic ..................................................................... 25 1.1.1. Fantastic as Umbrella Term ........................................................ 25 1.1.2. The Fantastic as Specific and Context-Related Narrative Form 28 1.2. Space in Theories of the Fantastic ...................................................... 33 1.2.1. The Uncanny .............................................................................. 33 1.2.2. The Liminal ................................................................................ 34 1.2.3. Space as Realistic Frame ............................................................ 36 1.2.4. Space as Fantastic Theme .......................................................... 38 2. METHODOLOGY : SPACE AS INTERDISCIPLINARY SIGN ................................. 41 2.1. Situational Dimension: Location ........................................................ 43 2.2. Linguistic Dimension: Discourse ....................................................... 43 2.3. Semantic-Actuational Dimension: Story ............................................ 44 2.4. Pragmatic Dimension: the Reading Time........................................... 45 3. THE FANTASTIC OF PLACE .......................................................................... 48 3.1. Place-Centred and Space-Centred Transgressions ............................. 48 3.2. Atmospheric Function: The Suitable Surroundings ........................... 52 3.3. Framing Function: The Threshold ...................................................... 59 3.4. Time-Condensing Place ..................................................................... 65 3.5. “The Nameless City” (H.P. Lovecraft 1921) as Prototype of the Fantastic of Place ...................................................................................... 69 4. THE FANTASTIC OF SPACE ........................................................................... 74 4.1. Space as Agent ................................................................................... 75 4.2. Space over Time ................................................................................. 76 4.2.1. Time............................................................................................. 77 4.2.2. Space-time ................................................................................... 77 4.2.2. Space ........................................................................................... 78 4.3. The Fantastic Hole: “Mi hermana Elba” (“My Sister Elba”, Cristina Fernández Cubas 1980) as Prototype of the Fantastic of Space ................ 79 4.3.1. Location: the Hideouts ................................................................. 84 4.3.2. Discourse: the Exception.............................................................. 84 4.3.3. The Perforated Story..................................................................... 86