University of Pécs Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Doctoral School for Literary Studies Albert Noémi CHARTING THE INTERSECTIONS OF MEMORY AND SPACE Approaches to the Self in the British Fiction of the Noughties through Four Novels PhD Dissertation Supervisors: Dr. habil. Kisantal Tamás Dr. habil. Sári B. László Pécs, 2020 Acknowledgments I am grateful to my supervisors for their help during these years, and for their moral and professional support that I could always rely on. I thank my family for their unconditional love and support without which I would not have pursued this path. Finally, I thank my husband: my companion who is always there for me. I dedicate this work to my father, who facilitated my relationship with literature and started me on the path of humanities. SUPPORTED BY THE ÚNKP-19-3 NEW NATIONAL EXCELLENCE PROGRAM OF THE MINISTRY FOR INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY. 2 Contents INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................... 5 MEMORY AND SPATIALITY IN CONTEMPORARY BRITISH FICTION ........................................... 11 I. MEMORY AND THE NOVELS ................................................................................................................. 14 1. Memory and History ....................................................................................................................... 17 2. The Unreliability of Memory ........................................................................................................... 20 II. SPATIALITY AND THE NOVELS .............................................................................................................. 25 1. Experienced Space .......................................................................................................................... 30 2. Embodied Space ............................................................................................................................. 32 3. Non-places ..................................................................................................................................... 35 III. THE NOVELS AND THE GLOBAL ERA ................................................................................................ 36 1. Memory and the Global World ........................................................................................................ 39 2. Spatiality and the Global World ...................................................................................................... 43 TOM MCCARTHY’S REMAINDER: MEMORIES AND RE-ENACTMENTS ........................................ 48 I. SPACES OF MEMORY, SPACES OF FORGETTING...................................................................................... 50 1. A Crack: The Absence of Memories ................................................................................................. 55 2. Spaces ............................................................................................................................................ 57 3. Mean Streets ................................................................................................................................... 61 II. TRAUMA AND REPETITION ................................................................................................................... 65 1. Surplus Matter ................................................................................................................................ 66 2. “History Repeating” ....................................................................................................................... 68 3. Human(ity)? ................................................................................................................................... 71 4. Infinity ............................................................................................................................................ 76 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................... 79 HELEN OYEYEMI’S THE OPPOSITE HOUSE: HUMANS, GODS, AND COLLECTIVE MEMORIES ....................................................................................................................................................................... 82 I. BETWEEN TWO WORLDS ..................................................................................................................... 85 1. Narrative between Dickinson and Hitchcock ................................................................................... 86 2. Yemaya Saramagua and Santería .................................................................................................... 91 3. The Somewherehouse ...................................................................................................................... 96 II. MAJA/YEMAYA ................................................................................................................................. 103 1. Hysterics ...................................................................................................................................... 103 2. Motherhood, Womanhood ............................................................................................................. 108 3. Embodied Duality ......................................................................................................................... 116 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................. 124 EMMA DONOGHUE’S ROOM: CONFLICTING WORLDS ................................................................... 128 I. ROOM AS SPACE ................................................................................................................................ 134 1. Real v. TV ..................................................................................................................................... 135 2. Fiction and Jack ........................................................................................................................... 140 3 II. BODIES IN ROOM ............................................................................................................................... 144 1. Abject Bodies ................................................................................................................................ 144 2. The Bond between Mother and Son ............................................................................................... 148 III. REMEMBRANCE AND TRAUMA INSIDE AND OUTSIDE ROOM ............................................................ 152 1. Inside ........................................................................................................................................... 153 2. Outside ......................................................................................................................................... 157 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................. 162 DAVID MITCHELL’S CLOUD ATLAS: THE SUBJECT AS ARCHIVE ................................................ 165 I. STRUCTURE AND TEMPORALITY ......................................................................................................... 166 1. Symbolic Structure, Structural Symbols ......................................................................................... 168 2. Actual Times, Virtual Times .......................................................................................................... 172 II. SYMBOLISM AND IDENTITY ................................................................................................................ 178 1. An Atlas of Clouds ........................................................................................................................ 179 2. Comets and Birthmarks ................................................................................................................. 181 3. Multiplicity and Singularity ........................................................................................................... 188 III. SPACE AND MEMORY .................................................................................................................... 194 1. Subject and Space ......................................................................................................................... 195 2. Memory and the Archive ............................................................................................................... 199 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................. 206 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................ 209 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................................................... 216 4 Introduction This dissertation topic was born out of a quite different set of questions I was trying to answer a few years ago. At the beginning of my work, I was invested in analysing the presence of history and historiography in contemporary British fiction. However, though from the very