Margin/Alias: Language and Colonization in Canadian and Quebecois Fiction 9781487580278

Citation preview

Margin/ Alias Language and Colonization in Canadian and Quebecois Fiction Two critical discourses central to current Canadian literary theory emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s: postcolonialism as a political paradigm and postmodernism as a literary practice in Canadian and Quebecois fiction. Sylvia Soderlind considers the current debate about the relationship between these two discourses, and proposes a methodology that makes it possible to identify and distinguish between features pertaining to the two. The theoretical question she poses is whether and how it is possible to determine the degree of what writers and critics variously call 'linguistic alienation,' 'alterity,' or 'marginality' in literary texts. Literary studies of marginality generally focus on theme, but Soderlind shows that a text's thematic claim to marginal status is not always corroborated by its textual strategies. Her proposed methodology is used to determine when and to what degree a text's claim to marginality is justified, as opposed to when it is used as an 'alias.' The author draws on the theory of 'minor literatures' outlined by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari and, in particular, on their concepts of territoriality. Their theories are combined with methodologies more immediately applicable to literary texts, notably the semiotics of Yuri Lotman and Boris Uspenskij and the deconstruction of Jacques Derrida. The textual analyses of novels by Leonard Cohen, Hubert Aquin, David Godfrey, Andre Langevin, and Robert Kroetsch yield some perhaps unexpected results, which are elucidated through a consideration of a wider corpus. The study opens up to an inquiry into the possibility of reading from the margin, a strategy solicited by certain kinds of postmodern and postcolonial texts. It concludes with some provocative questions about the postmodern critic's relationship to the literary text and its author. SYLVIA SODERLIND

University.

is a member of the Department of English at Queen's

THEORY/CULTURE General editors: Linda Hutcheon and Paul Perron

Sylvia Soderlind

MARGIN/ ALIAS Language and Colonization in Canadian and Quebecois Fiction

University of Toronto Press Toronto Buffalo London

©

University of Toronto Press 1991 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada Reprinted in 2018

ISBN 0-8020-5903-1 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-8020-6845-3 (paper)

Printed on acid-free paper Theory/ Culture 6

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Soderlind, Sylvia, 1948Margin/Alias : language and colonization in Canadian and Quebecois fiction (Theory/culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-5903-1 (bound) ISBN 978-0-8020-6845-3 (paper) I. Canadian fiction - 20th century - History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series.

PS8199.S64 1991 PR9192.5S64 1991

C813'.5409

C91-094687-6

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

0 Tongue of the Nation! Why don't you speak for yourself? LEONARD COHEN

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IX

Introduction: Writing in the Margin 3 Mapping the Territory 8 Myth - Name - Alias 16 Metaphor - Metonymy 2 3 Metamorphosis 28 Anamorphosis - Allegory 35 2 Beautiful Losers: The Novel as Cure 41 Intertexts 4 3 Naming 49 Metamorphosis 54 Translation 58 Inscription 65 3 Trou de memoire: Writing as Sacrament 70 Anamorphosis 74 Magnum Opus 87 Intertexts 96 Names 100 Oxymoron 105 4 The New Ancestors: The Writer as Sacrifice 109 Metamorphosis 112 Quinta Essentia 12 3 Heteroglossia 129 Names - Intertexts 136

viii Contents

5 L'Elan d'Amerique: The Novel as Echo Chamber 143 Metaphor 145 . Repetition l 52 lntertexts l 56 Naming 162 6 Gone Indian: The Novel as Rebus l 70 Rebus 173 Metamorphosis l 77 U nnaming 18 5 Syllepsis 197 7 Retracing the Map 200 Quebec 209 Canada 219 Conclusion: Reading in the Margin 229 NOTES 237 WORKS CITED 246 INDEX 255

Acknowledgments

No exploration can be undertaken without guides, and my warmest thanks go out to those who have helped me along the way, beginning with Olov Fryckstedt, who inspired me and showed me the road to Canada. Among the many who contributed to the successful completion of the journey are Peter Nesselroth, whose patience and support were greatly tried by my stubbornness, Linda Hutcheon whose perspicacity is only matched by her generosity, and Ben-Z. Shek and Frank Watt who kindly let me into their own territories. The advice of Leslie Monkman and Marilyn Randall on specific parts of the manuscript was invaluable, even when unheeded. Many friends at the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto have contributed unwittingly in one way or another; I want to especially thank Barbara Havercroft for her friendship and for all the helpful references slipped under my door. For his generosity with encouragement, ideas, computer hints, and editing expertise, I want to thank Frank Burke, and for their patience with my moods, Wylie and Tyler Burke. To the Department of External Affairs, whose generous award made it possible for me to come to Canada in the first place, my thanks are joined by my apology for never wanting to leave. A grant from the Advisory Research Committee at Queen's University allowed me to enter the age of technology. I cannot adequately express the gratitude I feel towards my big and wonderful family in Sweden, without whose help - moral as well as material this expedition would never have reached its goal. To my niece Agneta Helmius I owe a particular debt for helping make my discovery of Canada such an exciting adventure. The most special thanks I reserve for my