Experiments in Life-Writing: Intersections of Auto/Biography and Fiction PDF
Preview Experiments in Life-Writing: Intersections of Auto/Biography and Fiction
P A L G R A V E STUDIES IN LIFE WRITING LUCIA BOLDRINI JULIA NOVAK EXPERIMENTS IN LIFE-WRITING Intersections of Auto/ Biography and Fiction SERIES EDITORS: CLARE BRANT AND MAX SAUNDERS Palgrave Studies in Life Writing Series Editors Clare Brant Department of English King’s College London London, UK Max Saunders Department of English King’s College London London, UK This series features books that address key concepts and subjects, with an emphasis on new and emergent approaches. It offers specialist but acces- sible studies of contemporary and historical topics, with a focus on con- necting life writing to themes with cross-disciplinary appeal. The series aims to be the place to go to for current and fresh research for scholars and students looking for clear and original discussion of specific subjects and forms; it is also a home for experimental approaches that take creative risks with potent materials. The term ‘Life Writing’ is taken broadly so as to reflect the academic, public and global reach of life writing, and to continue its democratic tradition. The series seeks contributions that address contexts beyond traditional territories—for instance, in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. It also aims to publish volumes addressing topics of general interest (such as food, drink, sport, gardening) with which life writing schol- arship can engage in lively and original ways, as well as to further the political engagement of life writing especially in relation to human rights, migration, trauma and repression, sadly also persistently topical themes. The series looks for work that challenges and extends how life writing is understood and practised, especially in a world of rapidly changing dig- ital media; that deepens and diversifies knowledge and perspectives on the subject, and which contributes to the intellectual excitement and the world relevance of life writing. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15200 Lucia Boldrini · Julia Novak Editors Experiments in Life-Writing Intersections of Auto/Biography and Fiction Editors Lucia Boldrini Julia Novak Department of English University of Salzburg and Comparative Literature Salzburg, Austria Goldsmiths College University of London London, UK Palgrave Studies in Life Writing ISBN 978-3-319-55413-6 ISBN 978-3-319-55414-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55414-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017936913 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017. This book is an open access publication. Chapter 1 is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details see license information in the chapter. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: StudioSource/Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland A cknowledgements A volume like this is a work of extensive collaboration, and we would like to express our gratitude to the numerous people who have made it possible. Thanks are due, first of all, to all our contributors for their unwavering commitment to this project. We would like to thank the series editors: Clare Brant, for her advice and encouragement, and Max Saunders, who has also contributed a chapter to this volume. For her substantial assistance with the proof-reading and final preparation of the manuscript, we thank Brittain Bright. For helping with the transcription of the interview with Janice Galloway, thanks are due to Brigitte Grahsl. Special thanks go to our colleagues Sandra Mayer and Ian Macgregor Morris for their helpful suggestions and feedback on the introduction and to Dieter Cerny and Florian Mussgnug for providing last-minute scans of images from Lalla Romano’s books. We gratefully acknowledge the estate of Lalla Romano and the Italian Literary Agency for granting permission to use the images. Maria Macdonald and Richard Bolley, and Megha Agarwal and Beth Guilding are owed thanks for their practical support with the organisa- tion of our June 2015 conference on “Biography and/as Experimental Fiction,” from which the idea for this book arose. We are much obliged to the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the English and Comparative Literature Department at Goldsmiths, University of London, which pro- vided the financial support that made the conference possible. v vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Throughout the preparation of this volume, our thoughts kept going to our recently deceased colleagues Bart Moore-Gilbert and Werner Huber, two life-writing scholars who were an inspiration. Last but not least, we would like to thank our partners, Sergio and Jakob, for putting up with our workaholic ways. c ontents 1 Experiments in Life-Writing: Introduction 1 Julia Novak Part I (Dis)Solving the Self: Methods and Modes 2 “[A] Novel Should Be the Biography of a Man or of an Affair, and a Biography, Whether of a Man or an Affair, Should Be a Novel.” Ford Madox Ford and Modernist Experiments in Biography 39 Max Saunders 3 “Christ this is Getting Tedious!”: Beckettian Tone Versus Autobiographical Memory in B. S. Johnson’s Trawl 61 Andy Wimbush 4 “My Publisher Urged Me to Write an Autobiography”: Christine Brooke-Rose’s Experiments with Life Writing 79 Eveline Kilian vii viii CONTENTS Part II Genre B(l)ending: Self, Family, and the Nation 5 “Tell[ing] One Story in Place of Another”: Journeys of Discovery in Jackie Kay’s Autobiographical Prose and Poetry 105 Pietra Palazzolo 6 Rewriting the Traces of the Past: Jordi Soler’s La guerra perdida and Autobiographic Metafiction 127 Gunnthorunn Gudmundsdottir 7 Real-Life Fiction, Historical Form: Peter Handke’s Storm Still 145 Vanessa Hannesschläger Part III Intermedial Experiments in Life-Writing 8 A Family Album as Autobiography: Intermedial Readings of Lalla Romano’s Romanzo di figure 167 Antonio Lunardi 9 The Toy Soldier and The Three Caballeros: Javier Marías’s Dark Back of Time and Auto/Biography and/as Experimental Fiction 191 María Alhambra Díaz Part IV Experimenting with Lives: Writers Reflect on Their Craft 10 “Partial” Stories: Exegesis, Eisegesis, and the Tale of Two “Failed” Biographies 225 Will Slocombe 11 Custom-Breaker: Writing the Life of Elizabeth Cary 249 Ursula Hurley CONTENTS ix 12 Choosing Between Fictions of Clara Schumann: Interview with Janice Galloway 273 Julia Novak Index 287
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