A Brief History of Post-Colonial literary ideas

Marlon James: Pic. The Guardian Newspaper

By a strange synchronicity I am reading A Brief History of Seven Killings at the same time as preparing for my unit on Colonial, Postcolonial and Transnational writing.  I have not addressed the concept of transnational literature before and am not entirely clear what the term means.  I think it is akin to globalisation; an idea that suggests that no text can belong to one national context.  We haven’t had the readings for transnational theory yet so I will concentrate on postcolonial theory for the purposes of this blog.

In his book The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon discusses how when a country is colonised its indigenous culture becomes stultified.  This made me wonder about post-colonial literature in terms of the richness and contemporaneity of culture that post-colonial writers have at their fingertips.  Is there a vacuum, where culture should be, left by the departing, and generally despised, imperialists?  Is the remembered culture of the nation sufficient to provide a context for literature?

Marlon James presents the reader with an almost entirely negative version of post-colonial Jamaican culture in A Brief History of Seven Killings.  The novel is peopled by gangsters, by corrupt police and politicians, and by dodgy CIA spooks.  Poverty is extreme, guns are numerous and dangerous drugs destroy lives.  In spite of “the singer” (Bob Marley) at the centre of the novel, Jamaican culture seems to be  rotten to the core; influenced by the worst aspects of their new “imperial master”: America.

Fanon also suggests that a newly-freed nation must produce literature for its own populace.  James’s novel, however, was largely ignored in Jamaica, although revered in America (where James now lives and teaches) and in the UK.  It was only when it won the Man Booker Prize in 2015 that Jamaican papers and magazines took an interest.

Another idea which is discussed in detail by the authors of In Praise of Creoleness, as well as Ngügï wa Thiong’o in The Language of African Literature is the language to be used by post-colonial writers. The argument is that they should write in the indigenous language of their country rather than in the language of their imperial oppressors.  In A Brief History James’s many character-narrators are each given a separate language of expression, including American English.  Some character-narratives in patois might be initially inaccessible to most readers requiring them to learn at least some of a new language.  In addition, one character-narrator (Josey Wales) ranges through a number of registers in order to communicate, via interior monologue, his views of other characters and events.

An idea, from Edward Said‘s Culture and Imperialism, is that post-colonial literature is in thrall, and not only through the language of expression, to the literature of the colonists: Western literature.  This takes, as I interpret it, two forms.  Either the new writers try to emulate writing that they consider great, such as Conrad, or they upend form and content to such an extent that the very reaction against Western literature pays it homage.

James’s novel, based on fact and spanning a large number of years, is necessarily mosaic in structure.  The multiple narrators help to cement it by reappearing every few chapters and corralling the 75 or so characters.  James states that many of these characters  represent a type of “Jamaican-ness” that he wants to portray.  So the novel, which is certainly not brief, takes the form demanded by the task that James undertakes: writing a complex and deeply thought-out novel about his homeland.  He is now preparing a script for HBO.

In spite of James’s day job, I do not imagine that he set out to interrogate theories of post-colonial literature.  But, had I the time and space, I would like to analyse his novel in detail, not only as an example of post-colonial literature but also in terms of transnational theory, whatever that is.

Works cited

Bernabé, J. Chamoiseau, P and Confiant, R. In Praise of Creoleness. trans. Taleb-Khyar, M. 1993. France: Gallimard. Print.

Fanon, F. The Wretched of the Earth. trans. Constance Farrington. 1963. UK: Grove Press. Print.

James, M. A Brief History of Seven Killings. 2014 London: Oneworld. Print.

Ngügï, wa Thiong’o. The Language of African Literature. 1986. London: Heinemann Educational. Print.

Said, E.W. Culture and Imperialism. 1993. New York: Vintage Books. Print.

The Ante-Room

 

Noting, in the newsagent for €2.99, a very pretty edition of, what some consider Kate O’Brien’s best novel, The Ante-Room, I bought it.  And have now read it.  On the MA in Irish Writing and Film, we study O’Brien’s The Land of Spices and Mary Lavelle under the nurturing eye of Dr Éibhear Walshe, so it seemed rational enough to read another of O’Brien’s works.  Having done so, I used Google to search for analysis and found and read appropriate extracts of a PhD thesis by Sharon Tighe-Mooney. This, entitled, “Nun, Married, Old Maid”: Kate O’Brien’s Fiction, Women and Irish Catholicism, stimulated a number of thoughts.

Why, in academic writing do titles so often employ triads or triplets of words?  This one, has the rather clumsy “Nun, Married, Old Maid” which should surely be “Nun, Wife, Spinster” or, even, in alphabetical order “Nun, Spinster, Wife”?  I could develop this even further in terms of the various heroines’ love affairs with Christ, Man,or Duty but I do not want to labour what is mainly a stylistic point. Additionally, the three words/concepts Fiction AND Women AND Irish Catholicism are not happy together either; they are not equals.  You cannot compare Fiction with the portrayal of Women in fiction.  Would it not have been better to write Women and Irish Catholicism in Kate O’Brien’s Fiction?  This may seem petty, but to me it is important because I consider, in spite of my own errors, accuracy and clarity to be essential at this level of academic work.

In the fifth chapter of O’Brien’s novel, her heroine, Agnes, tells a suitor that she has a “maggot in her brain”.  Tighe-Mooney analyses this idea in terms of a blue-bottle grub: a maggot.  She explains how useful this analogy is.  But the word maggot has more than one meaning; see John Fowles’s novel A Maggot.  If I do a simple search for a definition of the word I am presented with two meanings: ” a whimsical or strange idea” follows the larva in the Google box.  So, obviously it’s OK not to know Fowles’s novel.  But is it OK not to check the word “maggot” before analysing it at such length?  The archaic meaning does not necessarily occlude the scientific meaning but it surely is the more important definition for analysis in the context of the novel.

Is this one of the reasons why I should put my own research on a blog?  So that peers can reach out and correct me?  This would be a convincing argument if any one ever actually read my blog.  But judging by my stats they don’t.

Meanwhile I should just say that The Ante-Room is an excellent novel, one that references Henry James as well as, I think, Charlotte Bronte.  The power of Irish Catholicism in the 1880’s context is interesting to me, especially in concert with O’Brien’s work on European Catholicism in her other two novels mentioned above.  I learnt from Tighe-Mooney’s thesis too; although my carping comments might not reveal that.

What shall I read next?  Shall I address some of the background reading for my dissertation on Enda Walsh or shall I do Heather Laird’s reading for our first seminar of the Post Colonial unit?  Too soon to do the latter, if I am to remember the detail this time next week?  Happy reading in 2016.

And do let me know what errors you have spotted.

Works Cited

Fowles, J. A Maggot 1996 London: Vintage. Print.

O’Brien, K. The Ante-Room. 1934. London: Virago. 1988. Print.

—. The Land of Spices. 1942. London: Virago. 2006. Print.

—. Mary Lavelle 1936.London: Virago. 2006. Print.

Tighe-Mooney, S. “Nun, Married, Old Maid”: Kate O’Brien’s Fiction, Women           And Irish Catholicism. 2009.  Maynooth University. eprint.

 

 

Elizabeth Bowen and other matters

Yesterday I went out to look for the site of Bowen’s Court.  I probably should have prepared more before I went but I knew its position, in terms of Mitchelstown and Fermoy and Mallow (formerly named Moyallow).  I knew that the house had been dismantled (and the stones removed) and I knew the story of the hawk and the position of the demesne below the Ballyhoura Mountains.  So, in glorious sunshine we turned off the N20 at Ballybeg (note the name in terms of Brian Friel‘s decision to set most of his plays in a fictional town Ballybeg = small town in English) Abbey (ruined) and drove around the small roads, choosing turnings which would keep us not too high and not too low in terms of the position of the house.  I think I understood why Elizabeth Bowen so loved the place and why she wrote that enormous, irritating but oddly addictive book  about it and its history and her family history.  I also thought of Emily Lawless and how her family had supported “their peasants” through the famine.  One of the Bowens instituted a programme of road building to give work for starving families.  Were we driving on one of these roads?   I saw a delightful road with grass growing up the centre but my partner rejected it; he wanted to get home for the Chelsea match (another disaster of this frustrating season).  As we drove we listened to Far from the Madding Crowd  and Hardy’s description of Dorset countryside and representations of rural communities and conversations between working men, provided a perfect backdrop.  No time to read that day, other than The Guardian’s excellent obituary of Brien Friel.  My favourite line in this article is a quotation from Friel: “There is no home, I acknowledge no community”.  This might come in useful for my dissertation when I hope to interrogate his play The Home Place .

Oh, and did you see?  Another Greek tragedy opened at the Almeida; another Medea.  This time by Rachel Cusk; another woman.

So I have not read any of my books and articles.  But, perhaps time spent usefully away from the desk and the computer? Today, I bought garden compost.  It is peat-based!  In England people like me do not use peat-based compost as we know it lays waste vast areas of land, particularly in Ireland.  Here, in Ireland, I could find nothing else in Woodies.

Works cited:

Bowen. E, Bowen’s Court, London, Vintage, 1999

Friel, B The Home Place, The Gallery Place 2005

Pine, R. Obituary, Brien Friel The Guardian 3/10/2015

Hardy, T, Far from the Madding Crowd 1874 Cornhill Magazine, Audio download narrated by Nathaniel Parker