ALASDAIR GRAY AND THE POSTMODERN Neil James Rhind PhD in English Literature The University Of Edinburgh 2008 2 DECLARATION I hereby declare that this thesis has been composed by me; that it is entirely my own work, and that it has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification except as specified on the title page. Signed: Neil James Rhind 3 CONTENTS Title……………………………………….…………………………………………..1 Declaration……………………………….…………………………………………...2 Contents………………………………………………………………………………3 Abstract………………………………….………………………………..…………..4 Note on Abbreviations…………………………………………………………….….6 1. Alasdair Gray : Sick of Being A Postmodernist……………………………..…….7 2. The Generic Blending of Lanark and the Birth of Postmodern Glasgow…….…..60 3. RHETORIC RULES, OK? : 1982, Janine and selected shorter novels………….122 4. Reforming The Victorians: Poor Things and Postmodern History………………170 5. After Postmodernism? : A History Maker………………………………………….239 6. Conclusion: Reading Postmodernism in Gray…………………………………....303 Endnotes……………………………………………………………………………..320 Works Cited………………………………………………………………………….324 4 ABSTRACT The prominence of the term ‘Postmodernism’ in critical responses to the work of Alasdair Gray has often appeared at odds with Gray’s own writing, both in his commitment to seemingly non-postmodernist concerns and his own repeatedly stated rejection of the label. In order to better understand Gray’s relationship to postmodernism, this thesis begins by outlining Gray’s reservations in this regard. Principally, this is taken as the result of his concerns over the academic appropriation of his work, and his suggestion that ‘postmodernism’ is an entity wholly constructed and primarily active within critical theory, with a tendency to elide the political dimension of literature under its own assumed apolitical solipsism. While acknowledging these reservations, this thesis goes on to explore the extent to which theories elaborated under the ‘postmodern’ heading possess utility as an approach to Gray’s work, primarily focussing on the extent to which they necessarily stand at odds with his political concerns. To this end, subsequent chapters go on to read Gray’s major works in parallel with appropriate theoretical models drawn from the diverse configurations given postmodernism. Comparison between Gray’s project in Lanark of providing contemporary Glasgow with imaginative depiction and the cognitive mapping demanded in Fredric Jameson’s account of the postmodern not only highlights their similarities, but identifies this notion of the ‘epic map’ as a central aspect of the political dimension of 5 Gray’s writing. The ‘epic map’ recurs in consideration of 1982, Janine, which explores the potential political agenda in its narrators’ seemingly postmodern fabulism, and its relationship to seemingly less ‘postmodern’ concerns of the novellas The Fall Of Kelvin Walker, McGrotty and Ludmilla and Something Leather. Likewise, ‘mapping’ also plays a part in approaching Poor Things in the context of postmodern historiography as described by Jameson and Linda Hutcheon. The penultimate chapter explores A History Maker as a complex negotiation with the very notion of postmodernism, installing, rejecting and subverting tropes drawn from postmodern theories, principally those of Fukuyama, Baudrillard and Jameson. In the concluding chapter, while no final conclusion is reached regarding a fixed relationship between Gray and the postmodern – a notion taken as impossible, given the heterogeneity of the values ascribed to the term – a degree of utility, and certainly of relevance, in approaching even Gray’s political concerns is thus established. 6 NOTE The following abbreviations are used for Gray’s major works: AHM – A History Maker. J – 1982, Janine. KW – The Fall of Kelvin Walker. L – Lanark: A Life in Four Books. ML – McGrotty and Ludmilla. PT – Poor Things. SL – Something Leather. 7 Alasdair Gray : Sick of Being A Postmodernist Neither of the two main focuses of this investigation are renowned for the ease with which they may be defined or contained. Alasdair Gray, polymath creator of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama and visual art has regularly been cast as a mercurial figure for whom ‘constant foregrounding of ambiguity… [is] a working principle’ (Pittin 1996, 199). The postmodern, meanwhile, functions for some as a byword for obscurity or uncertainty. Such uncontainability may be ascribed to the artefacts classed under the postmodern heading, characterized by Linda Hutcheon through reference to ‘self- conscious, self-contradictory, self-undermining statement[s]’, whereby ‘Postmodernism’s distinctive character lies in this kind of wholesale ‘nudging’ commitment to doubleness, or duplicity’(Hutcheon 1995, 1). Frequently, however, such qualities are seen to extend to postmodernism’s construction, which almost from the outset has stood as ‘a fiercely contested category, at once signifier and signified, altering itself in the very process of signification’ (Hassan 1987a, xii). Much of this chapter will focus on the tangled weave of definitions produced by this contest over the term. Before considering the identity of postmodernism, however, it is useful to explore that of Alasdair Gray, and to sketch some of the features which make the question of their conjunction so interesting. The strategy employed here in defining Gray is one which foreshadows a technique previously brought to bear on the postmodern. Faced with the seemingly irreducible variety found within postmodernism, some critics, most notably Brian McHale, have invoked the dominant, a concept appropriated from the Russian 8 Formalists which represents ‘the focusing component of a work of art: it rules, determines and transforms the remaining components,’ (Jakobson qtd.in McHale, 1987, 6). In seeking to identify the postmodern dominant, such critics attempt to unify this heterogeneity without denying it, locating an underlying logic from which its variety proceeds. The same approach may be taken with regard to Gray’s varied output, and indeed previous commentators on Gray have invoked the dominant in all but name, identifying various Gray fingerprints, stylistic and thematic, which not only mark this body as a single oeuvre, but render its heterogeneity more manageable. That a variety of dominants have been identified is not in itself problematic, for as McHale notes a single text bears multiple dominants which ‘emerge depending upon which questions we ask of the text, and the position from which we interrogate it’(McHale, 1987, 6). Where problems do arise, at least superficially, is when postmodernism itself is classed as a dominant structuring Gray’s work, for critical uncertainty as to postmodernism’s applicability is only strengthened by seeming contradictions established between this and other Gray dominants. Three Gray Dominants: Politics, Autobiography, Locality Perhaps the most firmly entrenched dominant within critical orthodoxy on Gray is his engagement with politics, whereby, as Alan McMunnigall observes, ‘[u]ndeniably, Gray’s fiction displays an obsession with the political’(McMunnigall, 2004, 337). As Robert Crawford suggests, ‘one of his principle continuing obsessions’(R. Crawford, 1991, 4) is not merely politics as a whole, but, more specifically, ‘the struggle against entrapment’ (R. Crawford, 1991, 4).. The relevance of this struggle to conventional notions 9 of politics is brought out in the dichotomy by which Gray analyses his obsession, where ‘all my writing is about personal imagination and social power, or…freedom and government’ (Gray and Gifford, 2001, 280). More generally, these ‘[t]ypical criticisms’, as Lumsden terms them, which depict Gray’s fiction as an ‘exploration of, and an imaginative escape from, the systems which serve to entrap and enclose the individual’(Lumsden, 1993, 115), show Gray’s obsession as focused upon one facet of political experience, while nevertheless expanding beyond traditionally ‘political’ spheres to engage with a variety of systems. To this primary dominant may be added another: the presence of Gray himself. To claim that one of the defining characteristics of an author’s work is that it is the work of that author is clearly tautologous. From another, post-Barthes, perspective it is unthinkable for quite different reasons. Yet the sum effect of all Gray fingerprints is to suggest a common source so strongly associated with their author that commentators turn to such psychopathologizing terms as ‘obsession’ when describing it. Here Gray’s fiction becomes an expression of his personality, even, such terms may imply, a symptomatic or therapeutic one. Certainly, there is a confessional air to much of Gray’s fiction. Despite his self-conscious search for alterity in 1982, Janine’s narrator – scientific where Gray is artistic, conservative where he is socialist – Jock borrows intimate details from his creator. Thus, for all Gray’s satisfaction that he ‘managed to get away from the ‘me’ persona’ (Figgis and McAllister, 1988, 19), their similarity is marked through his ‘putting in wee sex fantasies that I meant to die with only a few select friends knowing about’(Whiteford, 1997, 319). Further authorial manifestations are found when Jock works on Gray’s McGrotty and Ludmilla – whose author briefly 10 appears – and when he encounters an earlier self-image, ‘a hairy art student in a paint stained dressing-gown…working…on a frieze of fabulous monsters’(J 237-8). Extending from the deeply personal area of sexual fantasy to the performative identity