AN EXAMINATION OF VOICE IN CONTEMPORARY CANADIAN FICTION and BALLISTICS: A NOVEL D. W. Wilson Submitted toward the degree of PhD in Creative and Critical Writing University of East Anglia Department of Literature and Creative Writing May 2#$% &'his copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recogni(e that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived there from must be in accordance with current UK Copyright aw. *n addition+ any ,uotation or e-tract must include full attribution.. D. W. Wilson / An Examination of 0oice in Contemporary Canadian 1iction2 " Abstract When the term 3voice. is used in the discussion of contemporary fiction / as it fre,uently is – its meaning is ta4en to be understood intuitively+ and more often than not no further elaboration is either re,uired or offered. In these essays – augmented by my novel, Ballistics+ which has more than once been described as having a 3very distinct voice. – I e-amine what+ e-actly+ we mean (or thin4 we mean6 by the term 3voice. when we use it in our discourse about fiction2 it turns out that what we know intuitively does not so elegantly hold up under scrutiny. I e-amine the standardi(ed methods for both talking about 3voice. and improving it in one7s own fiction+ as put forward by luminary novelists and teachers li4e John Gardner and 8ack Hodgins, and I suggest that part of the reason why discussion of 3voice. is limited to what we feel+ intuitively+ is because voice is not embedded in the te-t+ but+ instead+ constitutes the e-perience / the what it’s like – of engaging with a wor4 of literature. D. W. Wilson / An Examination of 0oice in Contemporary Canadian 1iction2 ; Table of Contents 1oreword2 < =n the Notoriously Overrated Powers of 0oice in Fiction2 ? =n the Experience of 0oice as a Conceptual Metaphor2 $" =n 0oice and Body in Ballistics: ;; @allistics (an e-tract62 <# Appendi- (the rest of Ballistics62 "$% Wor4s Cited2 "?% @ibliography2 "?? D. W. Wilson / An Examination of 0oice in Contemporary Canadian 1iction2 < Fore or! >ot long ago+ during a beery discussion about PhDs+ someone as4ed me+ AAnd how many times does the name Margaret Atwood appear in your thesisB 'he answer is once+ when I refer to her essay+ Survival+ on the notion of Canada7s national metaphorC otherwise+ I have deliberately avoided what could be called the canon of Can it – the Mistrys and Munros and OndaatDes, the :ighways, the Lanes, the Adams Eichards – in favour of younger+ newer+ or underFe-plored Canadian fiction written (with one e-ception6 in the firstFperson retrospective. 'his is a group I fall into myself+ so it lends me a certain level of authority2 whatever claims I can ma4e about these boo4s – and+ to a lesser e-tent+ these writers – are li4ewise claims about my own wor4 (and+ well+ me6. *f there is any real consensus about voice in fiction+ it is that writers and readers (and+ dare * say+ critics) have an intuitive sense of what it is. As4 anyone what they thin4 of the voice in Richard 1ord7s The Sportswriter and they will have an opinion+ they will not say+ 3What7s the voiceB. Just don7t push them+ don7t get them to e-plain what the voice in The Sportswriter is. Fran4 Bascombe / no+ that7s who+ that7s the narrator+ that7s the point of view. It is my opinion that we shouldn7t ignore this kind of intuition2 we have it for a reason. 'rust your gut+ they say. *n literature+ it is difficult – it has always been difficult – to totally isolate any one stylistic device from another. 'hat is especially true when trying to analy(e voice. Fiction is a holistic artC to e-amine voice removed of all the elements of style is to ma4e Dudgements on the whole by scrutiny of the part. My intuition (ha6 has been to e-amine voice from a philosophical perspective+ or a rhetorical perspective+ or – especially – a metaphorical perspective. 'hat is+ it is with only slight resignation that I have come to accept that the proper way to tal4 about voice in fiction – at least+ with regard to the creation of more fiction – is to not tal4 about voice at all. * have similarly chosen not to engage with narratology and structuralism+ because I feel – as a reader and a writer both / that these two disciplines7 formali(ation (3narratology. itself can be defined as the science of narrative6 runs counter to the intuitive nature of my e-ploration of voice in fiction. 'his is a continuing theme throughout these essays: that when we try to pin down or put our thumb on even define what we mean by voice in fiction+ our e-amination has the opposite effect of only being able to define a portion of it+ li4e seeing a threeFdimension obDect in two dimensions, and leaves us wondering what we7re missing out+ or why our definition seemed so good at first but falls down under scrutiny. *t can be useful to tal4 about the way a writer uses rhythm to create or enhance a voice+ or how a certain subset of authors naturally root it in the body+ or how we can analy(e certain undercurrents, certain recurring patterns. But these are fingers, not a handC these are slices of the pie and they have (and they also lack6 properties that the whole pie has. If I7m honest+ I find myself seduced by a Humanist approach to this D. W. Wilson / An Examination of 0oice in Contemporary Canadian 1iction2 % analysis, where we comprehend voice as an adaptable and intuitive part of the e-perience of reading literature+ not so much as contained within the te-t as produced by the act of reading it. 'his forward was written last. Because this has been an e-ploratory underta4ing+ and because this e-ploration can itself be one of the metaphors that ma4e up the rhetorical trappings around the concept of voice in fiction+ these essays themselves appear chronologically. Part manifesto+ part memoir+ part critical selfFreflection2 my hope is for a kind of narrative progression+ for the comingFto of an answer. Which isn7t to say that I have found oneC it may very well be that there is simply no word for voice in our language. D. W. Wilson / An Examination of 0oice in Contemporary Canadian 1iction2 ? On t"e Notor#ousl% O&errate! Po ers of Vo#ce in F#ct#on or 'o to Fa#l at Tal(#n)$ to Prett% G#rls =n a Friday afternoon in July+ not too long ago+ a friend of mine struck a pose imitating a selfFportrait of the psychedelic Italian painter Pontormo. We were having lunch on a patch of grass outside some library near Eussell S,uare. *n his self portrait+ a goatee7d Pontormo levels one sweaty finger at the fourth wall, his hips halfFcocked and his closest leg a little kin4ed+ the whole thing oo(ing se- and transgression. Picture Johnny Depp meets Ewan McGregor. Picture dolledFup si-teenth century facial hair. Now picture2 speedo+ because that7s all Pontormo7s wearing – that and an e-pression that says he knows it. My friend 5call her Annabel6 was not wearing onlyFaFspeedo+ but I still felt a lump in my throat as if I7d swallowed a beating heart. I thought about telling her how good she loo4ed+ but I thought about a lot of things: how the hell I7d ended up in London+ sevenFthousand kilometres from homeC how a train stays on its tracks by sheer frictionC why the 0ictorians ever thought it a good idea to import a tree that smells li4e semen." !ostly+ though – at least+ that 'uesday in July – I thought about ways to talk to Annabel. I7m a fiction writer by trade+ a modest purveyor of sweeping narrative+ reticent dialogue+ and moments of emotional revelation+ but as a story never translates seamlessly from idea to paper+ so too does it not translate seamlessly from paper to voice. 'a4e that from somebody who knows. @ut those see4ing a tale of romance and bared hearts should see4 elsewhere+ because this is an essay on voice+ not girls. Or rather+ this is an essay on the poor comparison of voice and tal4ing+ and possibly on the failure of translation between the two – though in the e-amples to follow+ the latter is nobody7s fault but my own. *7m going to ma4e a bold claim and say voice is one of the most cited but least understood stylistic elements that readers respond to in fiction. Name a few good boo4s and you7ll find someone raving about the voice. Off the cuff2 Ford7s Sportswriter+ David Mitchell7s Black Swan Green+ Andrew =7:agan7s boo4 about a talking dog.; Publishers and agents stress the importance of finding 3new voices. 5Granta devotes a section with that very name+ every online issue+ to an as-yetFun4nown writer6 and in creative writing wor4shops students are told they do or do not yet have 3their voice. by teachers who have or have not yet found theirs. Stories have voices and writers have their own+ bodyFofFwor4 voices, and writers also talk – apparently quite badly+ if I am anything li4e a reliable crossFsection. 1 'hroughout+ * will shamelessly equivocate talking and voice and potentially dialogue+ too+ in order to ma4e this essay reek less of angst and desperation. " Pyrus Calleryana / no Do4e. 3 'hat boo4 would be The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe. D. W. Wilson / An Examination of 0oice in Contemporary Canadian 1iction2 G 0oice is not tal4ing.