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When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", University of Southampton, name of the University School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination http://eprints.soton.ac.uk Abstract………………………………………………………………...…i Contents……………………………………………………………....…..ii Declaration of Authorship………………………………………..…….iii Acknowledgements………………………………………………..…..…iv Reading Through Binoculars……………………………………..……..5 Critical Commentary 1. Introduction: From Sofia to Southampton………………..………311 2. ‘Between the Lines of Every Story there is Another Story’: Intertextuality, Miti’s World, and Writing the Bulgaria of Reading Through Binoculars……………………………………...315 3. ‘The Old Political Warhorse’: Reading Through Binoculars and Bulgaria’s National Identities………………………………...325 4. ‘Always In Process’: Cosmopolitanism and Reading Through Binoculars……………………………………...337 5. Conclusion: New Journeys………………………………………..347 Bibliography………………………………………………………..…..349 Reading Through Binoculars this work was done wholly or mainly while in candidature for a research degree at this University; where any part of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree or any other qualification at this University or any other institution, this has been clearly stated; where I have consulted the published work of others, this is always clearly attributed; where I have quoted from the work of others, the source is always given. With the exception of such quotations, this thesis is entirely my own work; I have acknowledged all main sources of help; where the thesis is based on work done by myself jointly with others, I have made clear exactly what was done by others and what I have contributed myself; none of this work has been published before submission Signed: James Cole Date: May 2013 I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors in the completion of this project. The warm and thoughtful counsel of Professor Aamer Hussein has helped with the writing of the novel and to breathe life into some of the voices that had been lying in the shadows of my story. Over long distances and blown-up computers, the consistent, detailed and enthusiastic assistance of Doctor Ranka Primorac has been invaluable in crafting both the novel and critical commentary, asking questions of the text and myself that needed to be asked. The guidance from Professor Ros King and Doctor Will May after my MPhil upgrade has been much appreciated, as has working with Rebecca Smith over the past year and her insights into the writing process. Many thanks must also go to Ani Nicova, my friend and guide in Bulgaria, to whom the novel is dedicated. 4 READING THROUGH BINOCULARS 5 Parenthesis I Dawn, filled with the promise of rain. Dimitar forces himself up the steep steps remembering that, once, he would have cleared them two, three at a time, only now he is slow and has to steady himself on the stone walls of the stairway cut into the hill. His eyes linger on his outstretched hand that could belong to someone else. In this light, with its craters and cracks and pallid skin, it almost blends in with the stone. In his other hand he grips a heavy briefcase. There is an easier way up, the main route that most people take where the steps are gentler, less steep. Still, he makes the effort and will take his time. There is no hurry. No one will start arriving until much later that day. He is hours early, was lucky enough to be given the keys to let himself in although the metal gate at the bottom of the steps had been tough and resistant and he’d thought for a moment he’d have to turn back or find someone to help him. A young boy flies up the stairway ahead of him, tauntingly, mockingly; goading him on. The boy reaches the top, calling down to Dimitar, and telling him to hurry up. As he climbs, the old man remembers there had never seemed as if there was enough time as a boy. Not enough hours in the day, not enough minutes in the hour. To see everything, to do everything, to dream everything. Eventually, he makes it to the top and his legs are tired and nearly give way beneath him; he has to go and sit on one of the benches under the fig trees in the courtyard, facing the two low buildings. “How many times have I sat in this exact same spot?” The boy next to him ignores him, bites into a fig that has fallen from the swollen tree and continues to lose himself in the book he’d been carrying. Dimitar cranes his neck to see which book the boy is reading. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. He remembers it well, the adventure, the sea monster, Captain Nemo’s Nautilus and its library of oceanic specimens. The boy is squatting at the other end of the bench, rocking back and forwards, the book resting on his knees. He turns the pages faster than he could possibly read them. Not enough hours in the day to read the book, and all the others. Knowing the boy will be occupied with the book for a long while, the old man looks around at the courtyard. Grey light is descending through the fig trees and is tinged with the yellow of the coming day. Low clouds threaten rain. Not for the first time he thinks that his agent, Silva, was too hasty in organising the event outside. He remembers September as a warm months, when he was a boy, but now it is as grey as the winter 6 months, occasionally exploding into a sunshine and deep orange warmth that are short-lived; the dying embers of a fire. He pictures what the scene will be like later. Silva has ordered chairs for the press and the guests so this whole space will be littered with them and she says she’s managed to procure a podium. She says it’s because it comes with a microphone and would be easier than fiddling about with a lapel mic but he knows it’s because she’s seen him shake when he has to hold his books and read for any length of time although she’ll never admit that she’s noticed. Sometimes the shaking is so bad it feels as if it might never stop. He can’t fault Silva in her choice of location for the book launch. He knows Danov’s House well, has been a visitor since his childhood. The two buildings on the edges of the courtyard are at right angles to each other. One building contains Danov’s printing press, a black, metallic spider-like contraption, and the second building, sunflower yellow, is the house where Danov lived and worked; now a museum dedicated to the history of Bulgarian publications. There will no doubt be photographs taken outside the house, he thinks, in front of the flowerbeds. If only the rain will hold off. Searching the bunch for the right key, he walks up to the heavy wooden doors of the yellow building and, after several attempts, he lets himself in, the smell of musty books greeting him like a barking dog at his feet. The hallway is full of stacked chairs, ready to be put out for the launch. He makes his way to one of the far rooms where Silva had told him she’d leave the copies of his book. The room is a replica classroom from nearly two hundred years ago and the boxes are piled up on every surface, bullying their way into the room, pushing aside the scales, a broken abacus, a smattering of old textbooks, some resin casts of body parts, and a poster, dog- eared and faded, that depicts the cross-section of an eyeball. He uses the serrated edge of one of the keys to cut through the brown parcel tape and removes one of the books. Noticing there is nowhere to sit, he finds the replica of Danov’s study and goes over to where the desk stands. Luckily they’ve had the good grace not to pile the boxes onto the desk but instead surrounded it; a lone island in a sea of brown boxes. Behind the desk is a chair. Vacant and inviting, Dimitar sits down to rest his weary legs. Through the window, he watches the boy read on the bench under the fig tree, oblivious to everything, lost in the story. Dimitar hasn’t seen a copy of the finished book. There had been a time when he’d been involved in the whole process, begged to be informed of all the little decisions, pleaded to have control over everything, and the publishers bowed down to him or at least they afforded him the belief that he had control when in actual fact everything had been decided long ago in a board meeting in some office he’d never been to. Now though, even 7 the writing of the thing was becoming too much of an effort; he was tired, and Silva was lucky if she got even a halfway decent manuscript to read.