A Thousand Points of Light a novel, with accompanying exegesis: ‘Lacanian Psycho: Analysing Transgressive Fiction’ Mark Rossiter Doctor of Creative Arts 2015 Certificate of Original Authorship I certify that the work in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree nor has it been submitted as part of requirements for a degree except as fully acknowledged within the text. I also certify that the thesis has been written by me. Any help that I have received in my research work and the preparation of the thesis itself has been acknowledged. In addition, I certify that all information sources and literature used are indicated in the thesis. Signature of Student: Date: i Acknowledgements I would like to thank Anthony Macris for his advice, his guidance and his patience. I would also like to thank the other members of my doctoral assessment panel, Paul Allatson and Sue Joseph, for their comments and suggestions. I am grateful to UTS for financial assistance. Thank you also to the following: John Dale, Sergey Podzorov, Conrad Walters, Isabelle Li and Toby Black. Special thanks too to Helen Richardson. ii Contents Certificate of Original Authorship ..................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... ii Contents ........................................................................................................................... iii Abstract ............................................................................................................................ iv Major work: A Thousand Points of Light, a novel ............................................................ 1 Exegesis: ‘Lacanian Psycho: analysing transgressive fiction’ ...................................... 186 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 186 Chapter One: Transgression and the real ...................................................................... 191 Chapter Two: Beginnings or warning: transgression ahead ......................................... 208 Chapter Three: The erotics of transgression ................................................................. 223 Chapter Four: Endings or the ethics of transgression ................................................... 251 References ..................................................................................................................... 267 iii Abstract A Thousand Points of Light is a novel that tells the story of a wildlife photographer who begins his career making pornography in London. After a trip to Berlin, he moves to Ukraine, where he photographs young models for a website. Now living in Australia, Max is forced to return to Kiev and confront his past when a journalist, Nadya, arrives to interview him about the international award he is short-listed to receive. The novel incorporates aspects of the 2008 Bill Henson affair and draws on the largely undocumented Ukrainian child model websites phenomenon. By locating the reader within the narrative as intimate witness, it exposes and exploits what the theoretical aspect of the thesis calls the Lacanian desire/drive of the transgressive. Additionally it explores the gulf between conventional morality and the artistic instinct which seeks to show beauty wherever it lies, asking to what degree the photographer is responsible for the scenes he or she captures. ‘Lacanian Psycho: analysing transgressive fiction’ is the exegetical component of this thesis. It applies the work of Jacques Lacan to the problem of transgressive literature by imagining the text of the novel as a Lacanian symbolic order, a pre-existing domain into which the subject/reader arrives and must resolve primary conflicts. The exegesis locates the transgressive moment in the text as the last signifier in the metonymic chain proximate to das Ding, the unattainable/forbidden object of desire. The field of desire motivates both reader and writer, yet because das Ding is also in the unknowable and terrifying order of the real, subjects are threatened. One response is repressive censorship; the alternative is the acquisition of new knowledge. This model is applied to both the writing of the companion creative component, A Thousand Points of Light, and to the analysis of the following other novels: Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, The Kindly Ones (Jonathan Littell) and Platform (Michel Houellebecq). iv Major work: A Thousand Points of Light, a novel A Thousand Points of Light 1. It was just another interview, that was what I thought, as I walked through the hotel lobby to meet Aleksandra Kovalenko. Just another one, all part of the brief flurry over the Photography International wildlife award nomination. Of course, the publicity was great for my agency, but it wasn’t what I wanted. You see, I’ve always been the one behind the lens, framing the shot, setting the scene: suddenly I was on the other side. Journalists phoned me and Skyped me and a few actually travelled to meet me in person. A few, like Aleksandra Kovalenko. She was where she’d said she’d be, seated near the concierge’s desk. But it wasn’t Aleksandra Kovalenko I saw, the London-based writer whose details I’d checked on Google. As I walked towards the tall young woman, and as she looked up and saw me, and rose to her feet, and held out her hand and said my name, I immediately knew who she was: Nadya. I said nothing. We shook hands and I followed her into the lift. I watched her, in the mirrored wall, as the indicator climbed its way up to the top-floor. It was fourteen years since I’d seen her last, a young girl, in Aleutskaya Street, getting ready for school. Now she was grown up: long legs in stylish jeans, hair in a neat black bob. Her eyes caught mine and I looked away. The doors opened. The bar was empty. Nadya chose a lounge in front of a big window with a full view of the sunset, looking towards the mountains and the burning clouds. We sat down, with her facing the window. The city lights were already on. ‘I am sorry I did not go to your office as we arranged,’ she said. ‘I slept in.’ ‘No problem at all. This is fine.’ She gestured out the window. ‘It would make a good shot.’ ‘Sunsets are not my thing,’ I said. ‘Not enough happening.’ 2 A Thousand Points of Light She looked at me. ‘I know. I have seen your work. I like it very much, as I told you in the emails.’ ‘But you didn’t tell me everything, Nadya. Why didn’t you?’ At the mention of her name, her eyes held mine for a moment. She took a notebook from her bag and opened it. I waited for her answer. A waitress came to take our orders. As she left, Nadya asked her something. They laughed, and spoke quickly. I recognised a few words of Ukrainian. ‘She is from Kiev as well. I will friend her.’ Nadya tapped on the phone. I looked out the window. Some music came on, soft jazz. There was a clink from the bar. ‘That’s your cocktail,’ I said. Nadya smiled. ‘You didn’t want one?’ ‘I’m driving. And I’m too old to drink.’ I don’t know what I expected, but she ignored the comment. She went back to the phone. ‘Nadya,’ I said. She looked up. ‘You contact me,’ I went on, ‘using someone else’s name. You didn’t have to do that.’ ‘But I did. Maybe you would not meet me—’ She paused. ‘Anyway, you are the one who changed his name, Mr Argent, hiding in the world.’ It’s true. I had changed my name, all those years ago. Became a new person, began a new career, lived on the other side of the world, left everything behind. We do what we have to do. It wasn’t fair of her to trick— ‘Max, I ask you, now. Why?’ I looked down at my hands. She was watching me. ‘It’s a long story.’ ‘I believe you,’ she said. ‘Even your emails, to me, as Aleksandra, they were long.’ I smiled. ‘Aleksandra Kovalenko is real,’ I said. ‘And she isn’t you.’ Nadya nodded. ‘She is a friend. She helped me.’ The waitress arrived with the drinks. ‘So,’ I said. ‘What is this about? What do you want, really?’ She picked up her cocktail, sipped a little, then put it down on the table. She straightened the notebook on her knees. 3 A Thousand Points of Light ‘Max,’ she said, looking up. ‘You must come back with me.’ I stared at her. ‘You want me to go to Kiev?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘With you?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘But why?’ Her expression was serious, eyes steady, mouth firm. I could see her mother in her, quite clearly. ‘You are,’ Nadya said, ‘frightened to come back?’ ‘Of course not.’ ‘You don’t want to?’ I hesitated. ‘Just tell me why.’ She sighed. ‘You will find out.’ ‘When do you go back?’ ‘The day after tomorrow. And you will come with me.’ I wanted to smile. Even the voice. That was what I’d recognised first, downstairs in the lobby when we met. ‘No,’ I said, after a moment. ‘Now, tell me what’s happened. Is it your mother? Is she okay?’ Nadya said nothing. ‘She’s not sick?’ She shook her head. ‘Then what is it?’ I waited. She still said nothing. I decided I’d give her more time, and besides I needed to think. I excused myself and I stood up to go to the toilet. Washing my hands, I looked at myself in the mirror. We pretend time isn’t passing, we claim to feel the same as we did when we were twenty-five, but it’s always there, chipping away, it all adds up. Yet sometimes there are shortcuts to the past, lightning strikes from long ago. I thought about Nadya, sitting in front of the window, a confident young woman. Yes, I left her, when she was eight, and her mother. It was a long story, as I said to her in the bar, but, believe me, I had no choice. All I knew was, I wasn’t going to Kiev. I dried my hands and looked again at the mirror. I’d left nothing at the 4 A Thousand Points of Light table. I could turn left instead of right, walk to the lifts, be gone before she noticed.