Real, compared to what? Insertability of constrained realemes in Dave Eggers’ What is the What
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47264/idea.jhsms/2.2.18Keywords:
fiction, history, insertability, constrained realemes, 9/11, postmodern, aesthetics, poetics, hermeneuticsAbstract
The paper examines Eggers’ What is the What (2006) that has problematically been called an autobiographical novel and memoire, narrating Valentino’s chequered past as one of Sudanese Lost Boys. The text yields potential perspectives that demand scrutiny for understanding of the fascinating reciprocity between fictionality and historicity. The article engages theorizations of the complex coalescence offered by Zohar (1980) and McHale (1987) to benchmark the thematic dimensions of the selected text against the cutting-edge postulates. In addition, Valentino’s preface to the “novel”, engaging with the purpose of his collaborative working with Eggers, and Eggers’ essay “It was just boys walking” (2004), negotiating the genesis of the project, have also been used as a methodological touchstone. The analysis vindicates the correspondence between the fictional and the historical versions, albeit the author has fictionalized gaps of Valentino’s historicized life. Thus, Eggers’ text consummates blurring by encompassing both the thematic dimensions, fusing fiction and fact, and the structural schemas, mixing the techniques of different genre traditions, inasmuch as his work exhibits a hermeneutic playfulness found at the heart of the aesthetics of postmodern and 9/11 fiction.
References
Alvesson, M., & Sko?ldberg, K. (2000). Reflexive methodology: New vistas for qualitative research. Sage.
Apple, M. (1976). The Oranging of America, and other stories. Grossman.
Barrie, J M, Zipes, J., Barrie, J M. & Barrie, J M. (2004). Peter Pan. Penguin Books.
Baudrillard, J. (2010). America. Verso.
Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narrative, and history. Johns Hopkins University.
Coover, R. (1977). The public burning. Viking.
Doctorow, E. L. (1975). Ragtime. Random House.
Eggers, D. (2006). What is the what: The autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng: a novel. McSweeney’s.
Eggers, D. (May 26, 2007). It was Just Boys Walking. Guardian.
Even-Zohar, I. (1980). Constraints of Realeme Insertability in Narrative. Poetics Today, 1(3), 65-74. https://doi.org/10.2307/1772411
Gray, A. (1984). Unlikely stories, mostly. Penguin Books.
Joyce, J. (1922). A portrait of the artist as a young man. B.W. Huebsch.
Luster, T., Qin, D. B., Bates, L., Johnson, D. J. & Rana, M. (2008). The Lost Boys of Sudan: Ambiguous Loss, Search for Family, and Reestablishing Relationships with Family Members. Family Relations 57: 444-456. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2008.00513.x
McHale, B. (1991). Postmodernist Fiction. Routledge.
Miller, S. L., & Rentz, K. (1999). Book Reviews: Discourse and Organization. Edited by David Grant, Tom Keenoy, and Cliff Oswick. London: Sage, 1998. 248 pages. The Journal of Business Communication (1973), 36(4), 419 422.
Montejo, E., Barnet, M., & Rowlandson, W. (2010). Biografi?a de un cimarro?n. Manchester University.
Moulthrop, D., Calegari, N. C., & Eggers, D. (2006). Teachers have it easy: The big sacrifices and small salaries of America's teachers. New Press.
Nance, K. A. (2006). Can literature promote justice? Trauma narrative and social action in Latin American testimonio. Vanderbilt University.
O’Gorman, D. (2015). Fiction on the war on terror: Difference and the Transnational 9/11 Novel. Palgrave.
Pynchon, T. (1973). Gravity's rainbow. Viking Press.
Ricœur, P. (1976). Interpretation theory: Discourse and the surplus of meaning. Texas Christian University.
Siegel, L. (2007, April 19). Rew: "The Niceness Racket". The New Republic.
Sheikh, S. (2020). To Clarify: Teachers are not off for Summer, They are in Recovery. Independently Published.
Thompson, B. (2006, November 28). "A Heartbreaking Work of Fiction". Washington Post.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Muhammad Uzair Khan, Saleem Akhtar Khan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Please click here for details about the Licensing and Copyright policies of IDEA-PG.
