alasdair gray and the postmodern

346 Pages·2009·1.13 MB·English

ALASDAIR GRAY AND THE POSTMODERN

Neil James Rhind

PhD in English Literature
The University Of Edinburgh
2008
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DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this thesis has been composed by me; that it is entirely my own
work, and that it has not been submitted for any other degree or professional
qualification except as specified on the title page.

Signed: Neil James Rhind
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CONTENTS
Title……………………………………….…………………………………………..1
Declaration……………………………….…………………………………………...2
Contents………………………………………………………………………………3
Abstract………………………………….………………………………..…………..4
Note on Abbreviations…………………………………………………………….….6
1. Alasdair Gray : Sick of Being A Postmodernist……………………………..…….7
2. The Generic Blending of Lanark and the Birth of Postmodern Glasgow…….…..60
3. RHETORIC RULES, OK? : 1982, Janine and selected shorter novels………….122
4. Reforming The Victorians: Poor Things and Postmodern History………………170
5. After Postmodernism? : A History Maker………………………………………….239
6. Conclusion: Reading Postmodernism in Gray…………………………………....303
Endnotes……………………………………………………………………………..320
Works Cited………………………………………………………………………….324
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ABSTRACT

The prominence of the term ‘Postmodernism’ in critical responses to the work of
Alasdair Gray has often appeared at odds with Gray’s own writing, both in his
commitment to seemingly non-postmodernist concerns and his own repeatedly stated
rejection of the label. In order to better understand Gray’s relationship to
postmodernism, this thesis begins by outlining Gray’s reservations in this regard.
Principally, this is taken as the result of his concerns over the academic appropriation of
his work, and his suggestion that ‘postmodernism’ is an entity wholly constructed and
primarily active within critical theory, with a tendency to elide the political dimension of
literature under its own assumed apolitical solipsism. While acknowledging these
reservations, this thesis goes on to explore the extent to which theories elaborated under
the ‘postmodern’ heading possess utility as an approach to Gray’s work, primarily
focussing on the extent to which they necessarily stand at odds with his political
concerns. To this end, subsequent chapters go on to read Gray’s major works in parallel
with appropriate theoretical models drawn from the diverse configurations given
postmodernism. Comparison between Gray’s project in Lanark of providing
contemporary Glasgow with imaginative depiction and the cognitive mapping demanded
in Fredric Jameson’s account of the postmodern not only highlights their similarities, but
identifies this notion of the ‘epic map’ as a central aspect of the political dimension of
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Gray’s writing. The ‘epic map’ recurs in consideration of 1982, Janine, which explores
the potential political agenda in its narrators’ seemingly postmodern fabulism, and its
relationship to seemingly less ‘postmodern’ concerns of the novellas The Fall Of Kelvin
Walker, McGrotty and Ludmilla and Something Leather. Likewise, ‘mapping’ also plays
a part in approaching Poor Things in the context of postmodern historiography as
described by Jameson and Linda Hutcheon. The penultimate chapter explores A History
Maker as a complex negotiation with the very notion of postmodernism, installing,
rejecting and subverting tropes drawn from postmodern theories, principally those of
Fukuyama, Baudrillard and Jameson. In the concluding chapter, while no final
conclusion is reached regarding a fixed relationship between Gray and the postmodern –
a notion taken as impossible, given the heterogeneity of the values ascribed to the term –
a degree of utility, and certainly of relevance, in approaching even Gray’s political
concerns is thus established.
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NOTE
The following abbreviations are used for Gray’s major works:
AHM – A History Maker.
J – 1982, Janine.
KW – The Fall of Kelvin Walker.
L – Lanark: A Life in Four Books.
ML – McGrotty and Ludmilla.
PT – Poor Things.
SL – Something Leather.
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Alasdair Gray : Sick of Being A Postmodernist

Neither of the two main focuses of this investigation are renowned for the ease with
which they may be defined or contained. Alasdair Gray, polymath creator of fiction,
non-fiction, poetry, drama and visual art has regularly been cast as a mercurial figure for
whom ‘constant foregrounding of ambiguity… [is] a working principle’ (Pittin 1996,
199). The postmodern, meanwhile, functions for some as a byword for obscurity or
uncertainty. Such uncontainability may be ascribed to the artefacts classed under the
postmodern heading, characterized by Linda Hutcheon through reference to ‘self-
conscious, self-contradictory, self-undermining statement[s]’, whereby
‘Postmodernism’s distinctive character lies in this kind of wholesale ‘nudging’
commitment to doubleness, or duplicity’(Hutcheon 1995, 1). Frequently, however, such
qualities are seen to extend to postmodernism’s construction, which almost from the
outset has stood as ‘a fiercely contested category, at once signifier and signified, altering
itself in the very process of signification’ (Hassan 1987a, xii). Much of this chapter will
focus on the tangled weave of definitions produced by this contest over the term. Before
considering the identity of postmodernism, however, it is useful to explore that of
Alasdair Gray, and to sketch some of the features which make the question of their
conjunction so interesting. The strategy employed here in defining Gray is one which
foreshadows a technique previously brought to bear on the postmodern. Faced with the
seemingly irreducible variety found within postmodernism, some critics, most notably
Brian McHale, have invoked the dominant, a concept appropriated from the Russian
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Formalists which represents ‘the focusing component of a work of art: it rules,
determines and transforms the remaining components,’ (Jakobson qtd.in McHale, 1987,
6). In seeking to identify the postmodern dominant, such critics attempt to unify this
heterogeneity without denying it, locating an underlying logic from which its variety
proceeds. The same approach may be taken with regard to Gray’s varied output, and
indeed previous commentators on Gray have invoked the dominant in all but name,
identifying various Gray fingerprints, stylistic and thematic, which not only mark this
body as a single oeuvre, but render its heterogeneity more manageable. That a variety of
dominants have been identified is not in itself problematic, for as McHale notes a single
text bears multiple dominants which ‘emerge depending upon which questions we ask of
the text, and the position from which we interrogate it’(McHale, 1987, 6). Where
problems do arise, at least superficially, is when postmodernism itself is classed as a
dominant structuring Gray’s work, for critical uncertainty as to postmodernism’s
applicability is only strengthened by seeming contradictions established between this
and other Gray dominants.

Three Gray Dominants: Politics, Autobiography, Locality
Perhaps the most firmly entrenched dominant within critical orthodoxy on Gray is his
engagement with politics, whereby, as Alan McMunnigall observes, ‘[u]ndeniably,
Gray’s fiction displays an obsession with the political’(McMunnigall, 2004, 337). As
Robert Crawford suggests, ‘one of his principle continuing obsessions’(R. Crawford,
1991, 4) is not merely politics as a whole, but, more specifically, ‘the struggle against
entrapment’ (R. Crawford, 1991, 4).. The relevance of this struggle to conventional notions
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of politics is brought out in the dichotomy by which Gray analyses his obsession, where
‘all my writing is about personal imagination and social power, or…freedom and
government’ (Gray and Gifford, 2001, 280). More generally, these ‘[t]ypical criticisms’,
as Lumsden terms them, which depict Gray’s fiction as an ‘exploration of, and an
imaginative escape from, the systems which serve to entrap and enclose the
individual’(Lumsden, 1993, 115), show Gray’s obsession as focused upon one facet of
political experience, while nevertheless expanding beyond traditionally ‘political’
spheres to engage with a variety of systems.
To this primary dominant may be added another: the presence of Gray himself.
To claim that one of the defining characteristics of an author’s work is that it is the work
of that author is clearly tautologous. From another, post-Barthes, perspective it is
unthinkable for quite different reasons. Yet the sum effect of all Gray fingerprints is to
suggest a common source so strongly associated with their author that commentators
turn to such psychopathologizing terms as ‘obsession’ when describing it. Here Gray’s
fiction becomes an expression of his personality, even, such terms may imply, a
symptomatic or therapeutic one. Certainly, there is a confessional air to much of Gray’s
fiction. Despite his self-conscious search for alterity in 1982, Janine’s narrator –
scientific where Gray is artistic, conservative where he is socialist – Jock borrows
intimate details from his creator. Thus, for all Gray’s satisfaction that he ‘managed to get
away from the ‘me’ persona’ (Figgis and McAllister, 1988, 19), their similarity is
marked through his ‘putting in wee sex fantasies that I meant to die with only a few
select friends knowing about’(Whiteford, 1997, 319). Further authorial manifestations
are found when Jock works on Gray’s McGrotty and Ludmilla – whose author briefly
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appears – and when he encounters an earlier self-image, ‘a hairy art student in a paint
stained dressing-gown…working…on a frieze of fabulous monsters’(J 237-8).
Extending from the deeply personal area of sexual fantasy to the performative identity of
authorial function, these figures give ‘Gray’ a pluralized manifestation in the text.
The same is true of the more openly autobiographical Lanark, where Gray’s
refraction as Thaw and Lanark is compounded by a further surrogate in the text’s
‘author’, Nastler. This meeting between Lanark and his supposed creator is just one of
several such ontological excursions in Gray’s fiction, again engaging with Gray’s
primary obsession, where in this case the entrapping systems of authority are the
trappings of authoriality. The effect of this ‘conjuror’, ‘an unstable and rather deranged
creature’ (Toremans, 2003, 584) or of the ‘Alasdair Gray’ who idiosyncratically
annotates Poor Things is thus to expose a position where ‘[a]uthorship…is not a
vocation so much as a tainted, encumbering office [Gray] hankers to resign’(L.
McIlvanney, 2002, 196). These self-portraits also possess a political dimension attained
less through their metafictionality than their use of Gray’s own experience. As Nastler
explains, ‘[m]y first hero was based on myself…the only entrails I could lay hands
upon’ (L 493). Likewise, Gray has ‘regretted that my hero had to be an artistic Young
Bloke – too many books about those – but it was easiest. I had more information on the
person I was and would like to be than I had on anybody else’(Acker, 2002, 46).
Attendant upon this regret was a further anxiety that this limitation might be
compounded by a failure to experience situations which Gray desired to represent. Thus,
he has explained, ‘[m]y main worry while on the job was that life might not teach me
enough to let me describe properly some of the best and worst that can happen to a