The Grammar of Identity : Transnational Fiction and the Nature of the Boundary

In our current world, questions of the transnational, location, land, and identity confront us with a particular insistence. The Grammar of Identity is a lively and wide-ranging study of twentieth-century fiction that examines how writers across nearly a hundred years have confronted these issues. Circumventing the divisions of conventional categories, the book examines writers from both the colonial and postcolonial, the modern and postmodern eras, putting together writers who might not normally inhabit the same critical space: Joseph Conrad, Caryl Phillips, Salman Rushdie, Charlotte Bronte, Jean Rhys, Anne Michaels, W. G. Sebald, Nadine Gordimer, and J. M. Coetzee. In this guise, the book itself becomes a journey of discovery, exploring the transnational not so much as a literal crossing of boundaries but as a way of being and seeing. In fictional terms this also means that it concerns a set of related forms: ways of approaching time and space; constructions of the self by way of combination and constellation; versions of navigation that at once have to do with the foundations of language as well as our pathways through the world. From Conrad's waterways of the earth, to Sebald's endless horizons of connection and accountability, to Gordimer's and Coetzee's meditations on the key sites of village, Empire, and desert, the book recovers the centrality of fiction to our understanding of the world. At the heart of it all is the grammar of identity, how we assemble and undertake our versions of self at the core of our forms of being and seeing. In our current world, questions of the transnational, location, land, and identity confront us with a particular insistence. The Grammar of Identity is a lively and wide-ranging study of twentieth-century fiction that examines how writers across nearly a hundred years have confronted these issues. Circumventing the divisions of conventional categories, the book examines writers from both the colonial and postcolonial, the modern and postmodern eras, putting together writers who might not normally inhabit the same critical space: Joseph Conrad, Caryl Phillips, Salman Rushdie, Charlotte Brontë, Jean Rhys, Anne Michaels, W. G. Sebald, Nadine Gordimer, and J. M. Coetzee. In this guise, the book itself becomes a journey of discovery, exploring the transnational not so much as a literal crossing of boundaries but as a way of being and seeing. In fictional terms this also means that it concerns a set of related forms: ways of approaching time and space; constructions of the self by way of combination and constellation; versions of navigation that at once have to do with the foundations of language as well as our pathways through the world. From Conrad's waterways of the earth, to Sebald's endless horizons of connection and accountability, to Gordimer's and Coetzee's meditations on the key sites of village, Empire, and desert, the book recovers the centrality of fiction to our understanding of the world. At the heart of it all is the grammar of identity, how we assemble and undertake our versions of self at the core of our forms of being and seeing. Contents......Page 8 Preface......Page 10 Introduction. The Grammar of Identity......Page 16 1. Waterways of the Earth — Nostromo; Lord Jim; Heart of Darkness......Page 49 2. Route, Constellation, Faultline — The Nature of Blood; A Distant Shore......Page 82 3. Combination, Divination — Midnight’s Children; The Satanic Verses......Page 114 4. Vertical and Horizontal — Jane Eyre; Wide Sargasso Sea; Fugitive Pieces......Page 149 5. Transfiction — The Emigrants; Vertigo; The Rings of Saturn; Austerlitz......Page 182 6. Village, Empire, Desert — July’s People; Waiting for the Barbarians; The Pickup......Page 220 Conclusion. The Nature of the Boundary......Page 255 References......Page 263 C......Page 275 E......Page 276 I......Page 277 N......Page 278 R......Page 279 T......Page 280 Z......Page 281 Waterways of the earth : Joseph Conrad : Nostromo, Lord Jim, Heart of darkness Route, constellation, faultline : Caryl Phillips : The nature of blood, A distant shore Combination, divination : Salman Rushdie : Midnight's children, The satanic verses Verticle and horizontal : Charlotte Brontë, Jean Rhys, and Anne Michaels : Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Fugitive pieces Transfiction : W.G. Sebald : The emigrants, Vertigo, The rings of Saturn, Austerlitz Village, empire, desert : J.M. Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer : July's people, Waiting for the barbarians, The pickup Conclusion : the nature of the boundary. "Stephen Clingman is Professor of English and Director of the Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst."--Jacket This text examines some of the most intriguing writers of the 20th century, including Joseph Conrad, Jean Rhys, Salman Rushdie, and J.M. Coetzee