Annotated Bibliography: Postmodernist Fiction
Brian McHale
Postmodernist Fiction
Routledge
A MEMBER OF THE TAYLOR » FRANCIS GROUP
* Ft not?"
POSTMODERNIST FICTION
Brian McHale
London and New York
In memory of
Robert J. McHale 1927-85 Steve Sloan 1952-85 Arthur A. Cohen 1928-86
First published in 1987 by
Melhuen, Inc.
••,
Published in Great Britain by Methuen 6- Co. Ltd
Reprinted 1989,1991 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001
© 19S7 Brian McHale
Photosct by Rowland Phototypesetting Ltd
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Printed in Great Britain at the
University Press, Cambridge
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced, or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, …show more content…
Uqbar, the invented Near Eastern country in Borges' story, "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
(1941), and the African kingdoms of Raymond Roussel's Impressions d'Afriqtie (Impressions of Africa, 1910), exemplify the postmodernist adaptation of this Ruritanian topos. Apparently located somewhere in Asia Minor,
Uqbar's exact geographical position is indeterminable. There is a "fundamental vagueness" in the encyclopedists' description of its frontiers, which are all fixed with reference to geographical formations within the space of Uqbar itself. Although certain identifiable place-names appear in the same context with Uqbar - Khurasan, Armenia, Erzurum
- it is not clear how the interpolated space relates to them. Like Borges' Uqbar, Roussel's kingdoms of Ponukele andDrelshkaf are mentioned in the same context with a few place-names that belong to the real world and can be found …show more content…
But the exact geographical disposition of these kingdoms with respect to known places is impossible to determine, and Roussel has the Emperor of Ponukele's cartographer exploit the indeterminacy of real African frontiers around the turn of the century by extending Emperor Talu's zone in every direction: On both sides of the vast watercourse [The Congo River], a huge red area represented the state belonging to the allpowerful Talu.
As a form of flattery, the designer of the garment had indefinitely extended this impressive territory, which submitted to the rule of a single sceptre and whose boundaries were, in any case, largely undetermined; the brilliant carmine stretched to the southernmost point, where the words, "Cape of Good Hope," were set out in large black letters.6
The interpolation of a spurious space between known spaces serves here as the opening wedge for a total assimilation of the known to the spurious: Africa is engulfed by the zone.
A third strategy is superimposition. Here two familiar spaces are placed one on top of the other, as in a photographic double-exposure, creating through their tense and paradoxical coexistence a third space identifiable with neither of
Postmodernist Fiction
Routledge
A MEMBER OF THE TAYLOR » FRANCIS GROUP
* Ft not?"
POSTMODERNIST FICTION
Brian McHale
London and New York
In memory of
Robert J. McHale 1927-85 Steve Sloan 1952-85 Arthur A. Cohen 1928-86
First published in 1987 by
Melhuen, Inc.
••,
Published in Great Britain by Methuen 6- Co. Ltd
Reprinted 1989,1991 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001
© 19S7 Brian McHale
Photosct by Rowland Phototypesetting Ltd
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Printed in Great Britain at the
University Press, Cambridge
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced, or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, …show more content…
Uqbar, the invented Near Eastern country in Borges' story, "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
(1941), and the African kingdoms of Raymond Roussel's Impressions d'Afriqtie (Impressions of Africa, 1910), exemplify the postmodernist adaptation of this Ruritanian topos. Apparently located somewhere in Asia Minor,
Uqbar's exact geographical position is indeterminable. There is a "fundamental vagueness" in the encyclopedists' description of its frontiers, which are all fixed with reference to geographical formations within the space of Uqbar itself. Although certain identifiable place-names appear in the same context with Uqbar - Khurasan, Armenia, Erzurum
- it is not clear how the interpolated space relates to them. Like Borges' Uqbar, Roussel's kingdoms of Ponukele andDrelshkaf are mentioned in the same context with a few place-names that belong to the real world and can be found …show more content…
But the exact geographical disposition of these kingdoms with respect to known places is impossible to determine, and Roussel has the Emperor of Ponukele's cartographer exploit the indeterminacy of real African frontiers around the turn of the century by extending Emperor Talu's zone in every direction: On both sides of the vast watercourse [The Congo River], a huge red area represented the state belonging to the allpowerful Talu.
As a form of flattery, the designer of the garment had indefinitely extended this impressive territory, which submitted to the rule of a single sceptre and whose boundaries were, in any case, largely undetermined; the brilliant carmine stretched to the southernmost point, where the words, "Cape of Good Hope," were set out in large black letters.6
The interpolation of a spurious space between known spaces serves here as the opening wedge for a total assimilation of the known to the spurious: Africa is engulfed by the zone.
A third strategy is superimposition. Here two familiar spaces are placed one on top of the other, as in a photographic double-exposure, creating through their tense and paradoxical coexistence a third space identifiable with neither of