The Novel in the Twentieth Century - A Field of Intense Debate

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Look back at the Nineteenth Century:



Received notions …

… on Fiction in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

Morag Shiach, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Modernist Novel (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007).
Some Key Novelists:
  • James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1916; Ulysses, 1922, Finnegans Wake, 1939)
  • Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway, 1925; To the Lighthouse, 1927)
  • D. H. Lawrence (Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love, Lady Chatterley's Lover, 1928)
  • William Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury, 1929)
Aesthetic Modernism:
Modernism of Contents:
  • not aesthetically progressive, but highly transgressive in contents, especially in relation to sexuality (e.g. D. H. Lawrence)
  • Both of these 'modernisms' are in opposition to the more and more dominant culture industry which is mass producing entertainment (cheap fiction, cinema), news (tabloid newspapers) and advertisements.


… on Fiction in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction (London: Methuen, 1987).
Linda Hutcheon, The Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction (London: Routledge, 1988).
Edward Said, Orientalism (1978).
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures (London: Routledge, 1989).
  • In contrast to the continent, the contemporary British market for fiction unites the potential for wide popular appeal and the potential for high artistic achievement
  • Postmodernism: a playful and self-conscious use of aesthetic techniques, and attempt to “bridge the gap between high and popular culture by mixing elements of both” (Cf. Leslie A. Fiedler, "Cross the Border – Close that Gap: Post-Modernism", 1975).
  • A radical postmodernism in the US (Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Donald Barthelme)
  • A moderate postmodernism in Britain (John Fowles, David Lodge)
  • The emergence of Postcolonial fiction (Commonwealth literature, third-world literature), new questions, new perspective, new options.
  • "Decolonizing the Mind", questioning Eurocentric notions of literature and culture.
  • Achieving international success (Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958, Nigeria). J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians (1980, South Africa), Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children (1979 India), Satanic Verses (1988, England and India).


Postcolonial key terms:
  • identity, hybridity
  • race and cultural difference
  • hegemony - power
  • challenging the centre
  • challenging Western notions of progress vs. tradition


Postmodern features:
  • "The Linguistic Turn": our access to the world is never independent of our language; Language games (Ludwig Wittgenstein), Discourses (Michel Foucault)
  • "The Death of the Author" (Roland Barthes, 1967); de-centered subjects.
  • deconstruction; challgenging notions of unity and consistency
  • Intertextuality
  • Breaking down barriers between ontological levels, between reality and fiction
Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction, 1987, p. 9: "...the dominant of modernist fiction is epistemological. That is, modernist fiction deploys strategies which engage and foreground questions such as those ...: 'How can I interpret this world of which I am a part? ... What is there to be known?; Who knows it?; How do they know it, and with what degree of certainty?; How is knowledge transmitted from one knower to another, and with what degree of reliability?; How does the object of knowledge change as it passes from knower to knower?; What are the limits of the knowable? And so on." The above mentioned questions are handled "through the use of characteristically modernist (or epistemological) devices: the multiplication and juxtaposition of perspectives, the focalization of all the evidence through a single 'center of consciousness' […], virtuoso variants on interior monologue […] ,and so on."
Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction, 1987, p. 10: "... the dominant of postmodernist fiction is ontological. That is, postmodernist fiction deploys strategies which engage and foreground questions like ...: 'Which world is this? What is to be done in it? Which of my selves is to do it?' Other typical postmodernist questions bear either on the ontology of the literary text itself or on the ontology of the world which it projects, for instance. What is a world?; What kinds of world are there, how are they constituted, and how do they differ?; what happens when different kinds of world are placed in confrontation, or when boundaries between worlds are violated?; What is the mode of existence of a text, and what is the mode of existence of the world (or worlds) it projects?; How is a projected world structured? And so on."


Example: Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses as a work that is at once postmodern and postcolonial

Satanic Verses - The Structure of the Book

  • The Main Plot links the fates of two main characters (Books 1, 3, 5, 7, 9):
  • Saladin Chamcha (formerly Salahuddin Chamchawala), an anglophile actor who has rejected his Indian past and identity long ago
  • Gibreel Farishta (formerly Ismail Najmuddin) a Bollywood movie star who may also be the Archangel Gabriel
  • Two Subplots which are dreamed by Gibreel :
  • The Story of Muhammad, the Satanic Verses and the conquest of Mecca -

(Books 2 and 6)

  • The story of the Indian village Titlipur which follows a charismatic young women on a pilgrimage that ends in death -

(Books 4 and 8)

A quick survey of the nine books:

I The Angel Gibreel [flight from Bombay to London – the present]
Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha fall from an exploding airplane
II Mahound [Gibreel Dreaming: Jahilia – early 7th century]
The Prophet Mahound revises a revelation he received earlier
III Ellowen Deeowen [Channel Coast and London – the present]
How Gibreel and Saladin get from the Channel coast to London
IV Ayesha [Gibreel Dreaming: Titlipur, India – the present]
Ayesha moves her whole village to set out on a foot pilgrimage to Mecca
V A City Visible but Unseen [London, the present]
Saladin, transformed into a goat, hides in the Shaandaar Café and B&B while Gibreel has a passionate love affair with mountaineer Allie Cone
  • VI Return to Jahilia [Gibreel Dreaming: Jahilia, 7th century, 25 years later]
Mahound conquers Jahilia and institutes the new faith
VII The Angel Azraeel [London, the present]
Gibreel rescues Chamcha although he has ruined his relationship with Allie
VIII The Parting of the Arabian Sea [Gibreel Dreaming: Bombay, the present]
The Titlipur pilgrims try to walk through the Arabian Sea and are drowned
IX The Wonderful Lamp [Bombay, the present]
Saladin Chamcha is reconciled to his dying father, Gibreel commits suicide

How Satanic Verses offers both postcolonial and postmodernist perspectives.

Postcolonial themes:
  • multicultural Britain, diaspora identities, racism.
  • Saladin Chamcha's / Salahuddin Chamchawala's identity quest



Closing the gap between the high and the popular – advertisements, film (Gibreel Farishta, a bollywood star) Postmodern play with death of author, intertextuality,



Second thoughts

  • What is the Relation between Postmodern and Postcolonial (cf. "Is the Post- in Postmodernism the Post- in Postcolonial?" by Kwame Anthony Appiah in Critical Inquiry, 17, 1991, 336-357.)
  • Can modernism and postmodernism really be distinguished? You can understand the arguments in favour of both sides: recall the simple and the complex notions about periods.


  • What does this perspective achieve? What does it leave out?

It creates a set of convenient problems with a predictable set of topics for discussion and a predictable spectrum of possible positions. (examples…) The formalist culturally elitist position The socially and politically committed position

On the other hand, it leaves a great many factors out of consideration:

Cf. our communicative model.


  • It does not reflect its own role (the role of the critical and scholarly discussion of literature) in relation to the production of fiction.
  • It does not give account the diverse and widespread character of communication about literature.
" I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality." (James Joyce)


Notes are offered because many readers find The Satanic Verses difficult and confusing

…on May 3, 1999, Melinda Penkava interviewed Salman Rushdie about his new novel, The Ground Beneath Her Feet on the National Public Radio phone-in talk show, “Talk of the Nation.” Asked about the possibility of “Cliff’s Notes” to his writings, Rushdie answered that although he didn’t expect readers to get all the allusions in his works, he didn’t think such notes would detract from the reading of them: “James Joyce once said after he had published Ulysses that he had given the professors work for many years to come; and I’m always looking for ways of employing professors, so I hope to have given them some work too.” (Paul Brians, Notes for Satanic Verses, p. 5)


  • In the 20c, the school syllabus makes English fiction into a central element of the secondary education system.
  • Universities begin to train the teachers required for this education system.


• Sep 26, 1988 – SV published in London; • Various British Muslim Groups begin campaigning against the book • Oct 5, 1988 – SV banned in India (other countries follow suit) • Nov 8, 1988 – SV wins Whitbread Prize for fiction • Nov 11, 1988 – : Thatcher rejects calls for prosecuting Rushdie or banning his book • Dec 11, 1988 and Jan 14, 1989 – SV burned by demonstrators in Bradford • Feb 12, 1989 – SV-related attack on American Cultural Center in Islamabad, Pakistan; 6 people are killed

  • The Fatwa, February 14, 1989.
In the name of Him, the Highest. There is only one God, to whom we shall all return. I inform all zealous Muslims of the world that the author of the book entitled The Satanic Verses – which has been compiled, printed, and published in opposition to Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur’an – and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death.
I call on all zealous Muslims to execute them quickly, wherever they may be found, so that no one else will dare to insult the Muslim sanctities. God willing, whoever is killed on this path is a martyr.
In addition, anyone who has access to the author of this book, but does not possess the power to execute him, should report him to the people so that he may be punished for his actions.
May peace and the mercy of God and His blessings be with you.
Ruhollah al-Musavi al-Khomeini, 25 Bahman 1367.
[quoted after Daniel Pipes, The Rushdie Affair, New Brunswick / London: 1990, p. 27.]


The consequences:

  • A debate about censorship and free speech under global conditions
  • SV is a bestseller (sales figures are difficult to establish)
  • Japanese and Italian translators of SV murdered
  • [all new editions of SV seem to bear the date 1988]
  • Prolonged Diplomatic Complications
  • Rushdie spends 10 years in hiding.
  • 1998: Normalization of diplomatic relations. Iranian government declares it will do nothing to harm Rushdie – but can the Fatwa be 'lifted'?
  • 1999 Rushdie’s next novel appears (The Ground Beneath her Feet)



  • National and international prizes that channel public attention.


  • Transmedial presence of fictional works (adaptations)
  • Fiction becomes the core of literary production, the contemporary version of relevant production in world literature. Fiction is turned into an object of higher education, of higher culture.
  • (expansion of the anglosphere; English as global medium of communication, as the language of the internet)
  • The discussion enabled by the received notions occurs in a homogeneous setting which its controversial issues gloss over and do not take into account.

A more comprehensive view of fiction in the 20c

  • would emphasise the homogeneity of the field, its continuity with 19c patterns.

e.g. new subgenres -- more and more in the low and non-national market. Popular vs. high continuity and divide. The established order of fictions.

(e.g. signs of fictionality in Satanic Verses comp. to Middlemarch)

  • The links between the scholarly, the educational, the general critical, approaches and exchanges.
  • Openness towards all sorts of texts, intertextuality, interdiscursivity.
  • Corresponding generalization of interpretive activity (poetics of culture).

What do we do with a 20c novel?

  • How does it exhibit its poetics? (narrative techniques etc.)
  • Integration into wider cultural exchanges:
  • by what topics or techniques does it aim at a “parallel discussion”, a wider contemporary debate, which it invites a chosen set of participants to engage in under special conditions. (Contrast Middlemarch und SV).
  • how is the discussion of this work positioned (what sustains it, who participates in it), how is this addressed.

How does it take a position towards a literary tradition, towards other traditions? (intextuality)

Conclusions reaching beyond the scope of this lecture

  • The retrospective homogeneity (anti-retrospective textualisation),
  • Different games, different constructions.
  • Are we (still) postmodern?
  • We accept the constructedness.
  • We reject the arbitrariness, “anything goes” (In this, we go along with the cultural turn...)


BBC TV report on Fatwa, February 14, 1989