Minimalism and beyond:
A discussion on two postmodern works of American fiction
By Dilshan Boange
(Part 1)
‘Art for art’s sake’ is a line that we are more than familiar with
and the adversities such outlooks meet in the face of market forces.
‘Literature-for-the sake-of-literature’ is the core slogan at the heart
of the USA based publishing operation Brown Paper Publishing, an
independent literary press that was not built on the sole basis of
profit motive. Clearly a space for the ‘alternative’ in what could seem
the torrentially oppressive streams of modern print capitalism Brown
Paper Publishing represents a number of authors whose work present the
writer’s vision unselfconsciously, in a rawness that disallows dilution
to fit in with popular requirements of the market place.
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Sarah D'stair |
How much commercial success Brown Paper Publishing has developed so
far, I do not know. What I believe that can be safely assumed is that
their authors have not as yet gained a notable readership in Sri Lanka.
I have not as yet come across any of their publications in bookshops in
Sri Lanka though the product quality of their productions would
certainly meet the standards that local book publishers and sellers
would be conscious of as a factor that relates to marketing.
After all, none will deny that the ‘look of the cover’ isn’t the
first thing that gets a browser started on a subconscious judging
process of the book as a work.
The works of Sarah D’Stair and Pablo D’Stair
In this two part article I wish to discuss a novel each of two
authors represented by Brown Paper Publishing. The works are –Hand to
Bone by Sarah D’Stair and Pablo D’stair’s Leo Rache, works of fiction
that would be categorized by present day publishing industry criteria as
novellas.
What merits for discussion the two selected works of two authors who
would be virtually unknown amongst the general English literature
readerships in Sri Lanka? In my opinion it is the scope the two works
concerned would present in respect of certain postmodernist features.
The interest that is gradually developing in Sri Lanka towards
generating more discussion on the lines of postmodernist literary
development may find some contributions through this article’s foci.
The themes of content and techniques of (narrative) form in
postmodernist literature is by no means simple enough to count with
one’s fingers as it should always be kept in mind that what is perceived
and viewed as postmodernism and the postmodern age is still a trajectory
in an ongoing process. And therefore what I intend to make the
groundings to comment on the two novellas, are related to a selected few
themes such as –subjectivity, identity and minimalism.
“Hand to Bone”
Sarah D’stair’s “Hand to Bone” struck me as a one of a kind from
works of (experimental) fiction I have encountered so far. The narrator
remains unnamed through the narrative like the protagonist in Knut
Hamsung’s “Sult” (Hunger) the novel that birthed the Modern(ist) novel
with ‘stream of consciousness’.
The banality of the events are severely mundane and present no
discernible ‘plot’. From a point of cultural appreciation I suppose a
reader in Sri Lanka would find some of the mundane events something new
to meander though for its ‘Americanness’. But in terms of conforming to
the general conceptions of what a novel ‘ought to be’, Sarah’s work does
not fit into the framework.
What is striking however is the ground the text provides for
explorations for thematic substance on the lines of postmodernist
literary thought. The minimalism adopted by Sarah is to such a severe
degree that it presents a narrative built on a very skeletal structure
of descriptivism.
Between staccatos and rambles
Thorough out the 53 page work there is not a single metaphor or
simile or any of the other usual poetic devices that generally literary
works are characterized by. The word constructions are such that the
narrative varies between staccato and ramblings and narrative modes that
appear to address an audience (reader) and then appears to be self
addressed, and thereby creates a string of ambiguities. At certain
points in the story the narrator displays a psyche disjointed from the
fullness of one’s ‘being’ –body and mind.
The reason to make such observations is that at times the speaker
seems to attribute certain body parts as almost autonomous! The
following is demonstrative of this quality –“First this foot moves then
the other foot moves how do the feet know how to move one after the
other to take one to a place where one decides to go.”(p.22) Please note
that the text does not have a question mark at the end of the line
quoted.
No, it’s doubtful that it could be typographical error/omission. The
whole text does not provide the sign of the question mark though lines
may carry the tone of a ‘question’. Once again the ambiguity of the
speaker’s intentions comes out strongly through this technique that
leaves even the idea of ‘what is a question (?)’ open to discuss. After
all if it’s in the strict privacy of one’s own consciousness, are there
really question marks and exclamation marks at the end of the line? That
is exactly what ‘Hand to Bone’ representational of in the narrative it
presents.
Objectivity of observations and existential vistas
Observations of the narrator are very fact like with stringent
objectivity, stripping phenomena down to the ‘physically’ factual with
little or no emotions being attached to the descriptions be it a thing,
a person or act. It is by far the most introverted interior monologue I
have come across and shows at times a snap shot discursive through
staccato sequences of images which are utterly banal.
Pages 33-34 has a fourteen line sentence what seems like a madness of
repetitions that makes one wonder is the consciousness represented one
of an autistic person? The narrative shows the instantaneity of
perceiving (an object, person, phenomena) but not as the primary basis
in terms of the ‘perception point’ presented to the reader. Such
instantaneity is not the norm of the text but the refection and
recollection of acts and phenomena.
This vantage crafted by Sarah almost makes the narrator depict a
voyeuristic self depiction which resonates strongly with the theme of
identity and the dilemma of an existential being. The fact that there
are no solutions sought to the existential dilemma like in modernist
literature (such as Albert Camus’s The Outsider) Sarah presents a
quintessential postmodernist approach where no solutions are sought for
the existential reality and instead devises (a) play within it.
Stripping identity to the ‘bone’
The narrative’s end brings the reader to a place where there seems
some cessation is intended, however if it is a complete cessation or a
symbolic one meant to show the end of what the reader is privy to of the
narrator’s perceptions (through the numerous faculties) is unclear.
‘Minimalism’ as a the technique has taken an all pervasive quality to
define the existential groundings in Sarah’s work which presents a
notion of ‘facelessness’ through the narrator, who may not be labeled,
and identified in terms of name, occupation, or even gender (though the
tone may imply a female consciousness) and thereby develops a strong
case of ‘identity’ and its markings as a social construct. “Hand to
Bone” seems to strip down the flesh, the blood, the veins the tissue
that makes us the beings that we are to mere ‘bone’. The very basic
fundamental that remains for millennia even after we are no more.
Readerships?
The very basic element that history devises its studies fusing
materials on to it to recreate the ‘whole’, a notion that seems to be
challenged from postmodernist perceptions. When stripped down to ‘bone’
an individual may not carry the social distinctions that mark him as a
societal creature.
Instead it is just acts, objects, phenomena that one finds, either
static or in motion. Along trends of modern day print capitalism, who
would ‘pay’ to read this book? I simply cannot imagine. But then “Hand
to Bone” is far from anything that may even resemble entertaining reads.
It seems the scope of the text far more academic. It would be a suitable
text whose textual body is ripe for dissection and vivisection from a
point of literary analysis by academia.
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