Michael Ondaatje: Haptic Aesthetics and Micropolitical Writing

217 Pages·2011·1.06 MB·English

by  Milena Marinkova

Michael Ondaatje
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Michael Ondaatje
Haptic Aesthetics and Micropolitical Writing
Milena Marinkova
Continuum International Publishing Group Inc
80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
www.continuumbooks.com
Copyright © 2011 Milena Marinkova
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the permission of the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
Marinkova, Milena.
Michael Ondaatje : haptic aesthetics and micropolitical writing / Milena
Marinkova.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4411-9439-8 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Ondaatje, Michael,
1943—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
PR9199.3.O5Z77 2011
813’.54--dc22
2011008212
ISBN-13: 978-1-4411-9439-8 (hardcover)
Typeset by Pindar NZ, Auckland, New Zealand
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
The Multiple Senses of the Haptic 4
A Touch Affectionate but Troubling 12
Michael Ondaatje: Writing Politically with a
Difference 20
1. Haptic Writing as Affective Cinema 29
Hapticizing the “I”/“Eye” in The Collected
Works of Billy the Kid 34
Coming through the Haptic Cut: History in the
Making and Coming through Slaughter 44
Humble Affections of the Cinematic: Michael
Ondaatje’s Films of the 1970s 56
2. Haptic Aesthetics and Witness Writing 63
“Touching into Words”: The Intimacy of Witness
Writing in Running in the Family 69
Witnessing the Body/The Body Witnessing in
Anil’s Ghost 80
3. Haptic Writing and Micropolitical Betrayals 93
“A Falling Together of Accomplices” in In the
Skin of a Lion: Writing, History, Betrayal 99
Between the Grope of the Hand and the Sight of a
Rifl e: The Betrayal of Propinquity in The English
Patient 112
Betrayals of the Cinematic: Anthony Minghella’s
The English Patient 125
Epilogue: The Haptic in Literature: Hiding, Playing,
Educating 133
vi Contents
Notes 142
Bibliography 181
Index 198
Acknowledgments
“There is the hidden presence of others in us, even those we have known
briefl y,” says Anna, the narrator in Michael Ondaatje’s latest novel Divisadero.
And on the following pages I would like to unveil the many voices — public
and private — that have informed my work: friends, colleagues, networks,
and institutions for whose unselfi sh, thoughtful, and wholehearted support
I am grateful.
The preparation and completion of this book would not have been pos-
sible without the generosity of the Department of English and American
Studies at Sofi a University and the British Council in Bulgaria; the School
of English, the Centre for Canadian Studies, and the Centre for Cultural
Analysis, Theory and History (CentreCATH) at the University of Leeds;
the British Association for Canadian Studies; Universities UK; and the
Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA). At different stages of my
academic career, these institutions and centers have provided much needed
fi nancial support for conducting the research and joining academic groupings
fundamental to this project. I would also like to thank Danielle Fuller at the
University of Birmingham, Rachel Carroll at the University of Teesside, and
Simon Popple at the University of Leeds for providing me with exciting teach-
ing opportunities, as well as valuable additional income for the completion
of the manuscript.
I have been fortunate to be part of the vibrant academic communities at
the universities of Sofi a, Leeds, Birmingham, and Teesside, which have inau-
gurated lasting intellectual friendships. My special thanks to Sam Durrant
for his continued support, guidance, and advice over the years; Ananya
Jahanara Kabir, Patricia Waugh, Madeleine Danova, Graham Huggan, Stuart
Murray, Shirley Chew, and Griselda Pollock, who have been scrupulous and
encouraging readers of various earlier versions of individual sections of the
manuscript. I would like to acknowledge the contribution of the participants
in the School of English Postgraduate Research Seminar series (2004–2007)
and the Migratory Aesthetics Workshops (c o-organized by CentreCATH and
ASCA in 2005–2006); their friendly feedback and lively ideas have triggered
a number of stimulating conversations — within and beyond this book.
viii Acknowledgments
Gillian Roberts, Jeffrey Orr, and Natalie Diebschlag have readily and
enthusiastically taken part in many an O ndaatje-inspired discussion. Without
the intellectual and emotional support of my dear friends Abigail Ward,
Alberto Fernández Carbajal, Annette S eidel-Arpacı, Charlotte Kearns, Edel
Porter, Elizabeth Throesch, Gareth Jackson, Ina Valcheva, Ingrid Young,
Joanne Lupton, Kaley Kramer, Kerri Andrews, Lily Tai, Marcel Swiboda,
Martina Johneff, Michelle Gewurtz, Nasser Hussain, Patricia McMahon,
Reshma Jagernath, Sam Francis, Sam Wood, Snezhina M omova-McVeigh,
Stefan Wanitschka Koenig, Susan Anderson, and Yeliz Biber, my life in
Leeds — and thereabouts — would have been solitary, monotonous, and
defi nitely unhealthy. A big and heartfelt thank you to Catherine Bates, Donna
McCormack, and Dominic Williams, who have not only read, proofread, and
commented on signifi cant parts of this book, but have always had confi dence
in my work and offered love, support, and understanding in moments of
joy as well as in times of hardship. And, last but not least, a l ong-distance
but nonetheless warm thank you to my family, Bonka, Dobrich, and Veselin
Marinkovi, whose dedication, support, and generosity have been a bright
example for me during this long journey.
Part of Chapter 2 has been adapted from my article “‘Perceiving [. . .] in
one’s own body’ the violence of history, politics and writing: Anil’s Ghost and
witness writing,” The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 44 (3) (2009):
107–25. Versions of my essays “Framing fame: Michael Ondaatje’s cinema
of liminality and affection,” Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural
Writings, 10 (2) (2010): 7–19 and “Speaking not about, but nearby: Michael
Ondaatje’s cinematic writing and the haptic,” Cinematic Strategies in XXth
Century Narratives, eds. Teresa Prudente and Federico Sabatini (New York:
Cambria Press, 2010): pp. tbc, have also been used in Chapter 1. I am grateful
for the permission to revise and reuse this material.
Finally, I would like to thank Haaris Naqvi at Continuum, without whose
assistance, patience, and encouragement this book would not have been
possible.
Introduction
American movies, English books — remember how they all end? [. . .]
The American or the Englishman gets on a plane and leaves. That’s it.
The camera leaves with him. He looks out of the window at Mombasa
or Vietnam or Jakarta, someplace now he can look at through the
clouds. The tired hero. A couple of words to the girl beside him. He’s
going home. So the war, to all purposes, is over. That’s enough reality
for the West. It’s probably the history of the last two hundred years of
Western political writing. Go home. Write a book. Hit the circuit.1
Thus speaks an impassioned Gamini, one of the main characters in Michael
Ondaatje’s novel Anil’s Ghost (2000). In what has been identifi ed as the
Canadian author’s most politically ambivalent work, the outburst of the
Sri Lankan doctor in front of the Westernized protagonist Anil — and by
extension all those imaginatively reconstructing the confl ict “over there”
from the relative safety of their Western homes — is permeated with cynicism,
despair, and anger with politics and cultural production. The predictability
of the Western plot is tiresome, according to Gamini, and its ideological
underpinnings infuriating. If the safe-yet-mobile external positioning of the
(Western) “hero” allows him to physically visit and imaginatively revisit
the exotic “somewhere,” those on the other side of the historiographic
process — trapped within the volatile triangle of Mombasa, Vietnam, and
Jakarta — are passive and disposable, simultaneously contained by History
and disembodied by political writing. Such f ilm-inspired heroism — a
short-lived sojourn in a tumultuous region, followed by an untimely retreat,
which is subsequently compensated for by a hopeful glance over the shoulder,
through the window, and amidst the clouds — is also reminiscent of the
temporal disjunctions and spatial conquests brought about by colonial and
imperialist practices to the non-Western “somewhere.” For the hero and
his audience, the violent adventure abroad “naturally” fades into an erotic
encounter on the way home, thus closing the fi ctional circuit with a love
triangle rather than a political impasse: love and war are equally attractive
to the eye of the camera/reader — they make and sell good stories.