f 1 ·t '). 1 0 l~ J_ t;J .... .. ... ... ~ I Samuel Thomas Martin Bleached Bones Rattling Bleached Bones Rattling Reviving the Art of Sacramental Reading By Samuel Thomas Martin A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Department of English Language and Literature Memorial University of Newfoundland August 2012 St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador Samuel Thomas Martin Bleached Bones Rattling Abstract In my thesis, Bleached Bones Rattling: Reviving the Art of Sacramental Reading, I examine recent novels by David Adams Richards, Michael Winter, Lisa Moore, and Michael Crummey in order to flesh-out the idea of "holiness" and to show ways in which this idea has been refigured in contemporary Atlantic Canadian fiction. I begin with Richards because he is a writer who has long claimed that the hoHness of human life is his central subject matter: a theme that has received harsh, cursory criticism by Christopher Armstrong and Herb Wyile (1997) and more in- depth, historical treatment by Tony Tremblay in David Adams Richards of the Miramichi (2010). Beginning with Richards and working through novels by these three other Atlantic Canadian authors (who do not necessarily share Richards' Catholic worldview), I examine varying ways in which holiness confronts a reader, calls her1 to responsibility, draws her out of herself into a world of others, and, through a sacramental encounter, returns that reader to herself and her world with a broader view and experience of others. Each chapter begins with an articulation of these stages in terms of theory and then explores the shape that theory takes in a reading of a specific novel. In chapter one, I bring the "religious" philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida to bear on David Adams Richards' Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul (2011) in order to illuminate how a reader is 1 In an effort to make the language of this work (1) gender inclusive and (2) less clunky, I have opted to refer to theoretical readers, writers in the feminine. 2 -- ----- ----------------------------------------- Samuel Thomas Martin Bleached Bones Rattling ca11ed to responsibility through the "adieu" of another. In the second chapter, I examine the covenant a reader makes with a story (and the dialogic world of others therein) in a discussion that approaches Michael Winter's The Death of Donna Whalen (2010) through the literary criticism of J. Edward Chamberlin and Deborah Bowen. In the third chapter, I give shape to a reader's journey out from herself- her own ego- in looking at Lisa Moore's February (2009), Gregory Wolfe's essay "Stalking the Spirit," and the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur. And in the fourth and final chapter, I examine the sacramental nature of the reading experience by comparing the theoretical views of Daniel Coleman with those of Richard Kearney and "tasting" the substantiation of these views in Michael Crummey's Galore (2009). My aim throughout this work is to construct a new theoretical language, out of an old religious language, in which to house the idea of holiness and to give it new critical shape in contemporary literary studies. In doing so, I demonstrate how holiness, despite its religious history and connotations, is more than an "idea" but a "real" life-giving and humanizing presence in fiction that can be encountered by all readers. This encounter, far from being idealistic or utopian, is a messy, combative affair which I depict as Jacob wrestling the angel: a reader grappling with that which is beyond her. In doing so, I demonstrate what Jean-Louis Chretien, in Hand to Hand: Listening to the Work of Art (2003), describes as the "intimate violence" of this encounter: this covenant. I do this by confronting theories of holiness with their "twin" forms in specific novels, forcing these theories to wrestle with their fictive figurations-like the left-handed and right-handed twins of Mother Earth in Iroquoisian myth- in order to see how stories can wound and bless these theories and transfigure them into a new theory of holiness. 3 Samuel Thomas Martin Bleached Bones Rattling Ultimately, I argue that reading allows for a continuing substantiation of holiness-an empathetic sense of human worth-in the life of a reader. Such readings, as I demonstrate in my encounters with novels by Richards, Winter, Moore, and Crummey, open a reader to be both wounded and blessed by the humanity of others, allowing that reader imaginative opportunities to become ever more human herself. This involves more than "recovering the human in an ideological age," to riff on the subtitle of Gregory Wolfe's recent book Beauty Will Save the World (2011). What I propose is are-imagination of what it can mean to be human if we see our fellow humans as, in some way, holy and irreplaceable: utterly unique and of infinite value. Central to my thesis is the belief that stories wrestle from us such re-imaginations: of ourselves and our worlds. And we too leave our mark on stories in our interpretations of them. Stories, after all, can be catalysts for imaginative awakenings in the life of a reader, and these awakenings-these re-imaginations-are, ultimately, the prophetic outworking of sacramental readings: Ezekiel's valley of dry bones rattling, beginning to rise up. 4 Samuel Thomas Martin Bleached Bones Rattling Acknowledgements The writing of this thesis would have been impossible without the loving support of my wife Samantha, who endured not only the metaphorical crucible of putting a husband through graduate school but also the literal fire of having our possessions burned during our move to Newfoundland in August 2008. Everything I have learned about persistence I learned from her. I would also like to acknowledge the unflagging support of the Department of English Language and Literature at Memorial University of Newfoundland, particularly Dr. Danine Farquharson, Dr. Valerie Legge, Dr. Fiona Polack, Dr. Christopher Lockett, Prof. Mary Dalton, Dr. Jessica Grant, and Dr. Pat Byrne. I would also like to thank my supervisors, Dr. Lawrence Mathews and Dr. Robert Finley, for their generous support and critical feedback during the writing of this dissertation. This project could not have been completed without the financial support of Memorial University of Newfoundland, in the form of a SGS Merit Award and a SGS Entrance Fellowship, and also the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, in the form of a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship. Further financial support came in the form of a Canadian Literature 50th Gala Travel Fellowship that enabled me to travel to the University of British Columbia to present a paper on my initial ideas about "sacramental reading" at ''The Future of Canadian Literature/Canadian Literature Conference" (30 Sept. - 3 Oct. 2009). A condensed version of Chapter One was presented as a research paper at "The 19th Atlantic Canada Studies Conference" at the University of New Brunswick, St. John (4- 6 May 2012). 5 Samuel Thomas Martin Bleached Bones Rattling Table of Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 5 Table of Contents 6 Prologue 7 Introduction 11 Chapter One 1.1 Introduction 39 1.2 The Adieu of Reading 40 1.3 David Adams Richards' Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul 58 Chapter Two 2.1 Introduction 102 2.2 Reading as a "Ceremony of Belief' 105 2.3 Michael Winter's The Death of Donna Whalen 122 Chapter Three 3.1 Introduction 157 3.2 Reading as Returning Other-wise 160 3.3 Lisa Moore's February 184 Chapter Four 4.1 Introduction 217 4.2 Eucharistic Reading 220 4.3 Michael Crummey's Galore 241 Conclusion: Refiguring Holiness 277 Works Cited 288 6 Samuel Thomas Martin Bleached Bones Rattling Prologue There was once a man who stood on a cliff overlooking a mass grave. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but sun-bleached bones picked clean by vultures. Nothing moved in the grave that stretched from rock cut to cliff Not even vultures for they had flown off in search of other carcasses. The man on the cliff tried to imagine ligaments growing between the bones; he tried to conjure in his mind muscle and bowel, heart and skin; he tried to dream of these bones coming back to life. After a while his daydreaming gave him enough courage to whisper the words he had come to this place to say. And soon his whispering turned to speaking and then to shouting, until the words dried up and everything was silent again over the mass grave. That's when the strangest thing happened: the bones began to rattle. 2 2 Drawn from Ezekiel37 in The Holy Bible. 7 Samuel Thomas Martin Bleached Bones Rattling Ezekiel's story is a famjliar one: the valley of dry bones conUng to life. It has been around for eons and will no doubt persist because we love stories where the impossible happens. We desperately want to believe in something- whether that is that the Pope is infallible or that all priests are perverts; that Western capitalism will save the Arab world or that the West only wants to exploit the Middle-east. Some would like to see Anglicans resolve their "daddy" issues and rejoin the Catholic church while others would like to see jumper cables attached to the genitals of all buggering priests; some would like to see more Tim Hortons in Afghanistan than IslanUc mosques while others would like to worship at a mosque in New York without fearing a Molotov cocktail. Each of these desired ends is somebody' s utopia, someone's dream. And each one is equally as unlikely- maybe even impossible.