Spatial Politics in the Postcolonial Novel PDF
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Spatial politicS in the poStcolonial novel To the memory of my Grandfather, Reginald Fredrick Ling: for his love, and for believing in me. Spatial politics in the postcolonial novel Sara UpStone Kingston University, UK © Sara Upstone 2009 all rights reserved. no part of this publication 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 prior permission of the publisher. Sara Upstone has asserted her moral right under the copyright, Designs and patents act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. published by ashgate publishing limited ashgate publishing company Wey court east Suite 420 Union road 101 cherry Street Farnham Burlington Surrey, GU9 7pt vt 05401-4405 england USa www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Upstone, Sara Spatial politics in the postcolonial novel 1. harris, Wilson – criticism and interpretation 2. Morrison, toni -– criticism and interpretation 3. Rushdie, Salman – Criticism and interpretation 4. English fiction – 20th century – history and criticism 5. postcolonialism in literature i. title 823.9’14093582825 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Upstone, Sara. Spatial politics in the postcolonial novel / by Sara Upstone. p. cm. includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7546-6552-6 (alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7546-9312-3 (e-book) 1. Space in literature. 2. postcolonialism in literature. 3. personal space in literature. 4. Self in literature. 5. Geography in literature. i. title. pn56.S667U67 2009 809.3’93581—dc22 2008044369 iSBn: 978-0-7546-6552-6 contents Acknowledgments vi introduction: the politics of post-Space 1 1 Shifting the Scales: postcolonial nation 25 2 the Fulcrum of instability: postcolonial Journeys 57 3 the ambiguous Utopia: postcolonial cities 85 4 reversals of representation: postcolonial homes 115 5 last Scale: postcolonial Bodies 147 afterword 181 Works Cited 185 Index 207 Acknowledgments This book would have been impossible without the assistance of a large number of people and organisations. Financially, the project would have been impossible without the support of the ahrc, who supported the postgraduate research which made both this project and my academic career possible. Early ideas were fostered by the staff of Birkbeck College – first through Steve Connor, and then by both Jo McDonagh and Mpalive Msiska, who supervised the subsequent doctoral research. The latter must be thanked not only for his academic support, but also his continued friendship. i also owe a debt of gratitude to paula Burnett, whose inspirational teaching at Brunel University first introduced me to the writing of Wilson Harris, and who first encouraged me to pursue an academic career. More recently, I would like to thank my colleagues at Kingston University; in particular, avril horner and Sarah Sceats for their good advice and generous support, and erica longfellow for the same, but also for her friendship, and for dairy-free cakes! I have also been lucky to have been able to try out these ideas on a number of my students, discussions with whom have proven invaluable. i would also like to thank all those, too numerous to note, who have provided comments on this work at the numerous conferences I have attended over the last five years. i am extremely fortunate to have had such a supportive editor in ann o’Donahue at ashgate, who has received my numerous queries with incredible good spirit. i am also particularly grateful to the anonymous reader, whose comments on the manuscript were both challenging and insightful. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their good humour, unfailing interest, and unwavering enthusiasm. in particular, this project would have been impossible without philip Upstone and my mother, christine Dailey, who have between them read so many drafts of this work that I fear they may know it as well as I do. Philip, you have kept me sane in moments of crisis, and the magic and joy you bring to our lives made the continued development of this project possible. Mum, the sacrifices you have made for me are unfathomable, and too vast to ever account for; without them, I would never be in the position to be able to realise the vision presented here. earlier versions of some of the discussions here exist in the following publications, material from which is reprinted with kind permission. The discussion of spatial politics in the introduction and of Ben Okri in chapter three first appeared in ‘Writing the Post-Colonial Space: Ben Okri’s Magical City and the Subversion of imperialism’, Partial Answers 2.2 (June 2004). Discussion of Rushdie’s journeys initially appeared in ‘the Fulcrum of instability: Salman rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet and the postcolonial traveller’, Wasafiri 21.1 (2006). Acknowledgments vii Discussion of domesticity in Rushdie’s novels first appeared in ‘Domesticity in Magical-realist postcolonial Fiction: reversals of representation in Salman rushdie’s Midnight’s Children’, Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies 28.1/2 (2007), and is reprinted by kind permission of University of Nebraska Press. Quotations from Salman rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and Midnight’s Children are reproduced by kind permission of Random House Publishing; quotations from the works of Wilson Harris are reproduced by kind permission of Faber. Finally, the beautiful cover image is the work of Kerry McLennan, and is reproduced here with her permission. This page has been left blank intentionally introduction: the politics of post-Space the acquisition of land in the name of a writing requires the establishment of borders and ensuing subdivision. this in turn leads to an ever increasing segmentation and fragmentation of space on almost every level … and this fragmentation brings with it the necessity of crossing, a constant violation of the boundaries it has created. the colony must, however, present itself as a unity, not only for the purposes of ideology, but also (and perhaps this is a more important consideration), for the purpose of communication – its very ability to function as a colony. (Noyes 162) For the ancient Greeks, the notion of the political – as encapsulated in the polis – was a broad definition encompassing the aesthetic and the cultural, as well as the governmental. Yet in contemporary society, the political is often perceived as a narrow term referring predominantly to the large-scale: those acts that change national policy or legislation. In terms of space, such definition has meant that it is often the nation – that imaginary space of government authority – that seems to be the subject of political action. in terms of postcolonial space, this has raised the problematic spectre of political negotiation being confined to a territory that is often a product of exactly the system – colonial or neo-colonial – that is being protested against. This book offers a reading of the postcolonial novel that is centred upon an alternative concept of spatial politics: one that is rooted not solely in a politics of the nation, but instead reflects the diverse spaces that construct the postcolonial experience. History/Space the shift from a diverse, multi-faceted notion of political space to one centred around concepts of the nation reflects a more dramatic shift in the attention given to space by key thinkers of the modern period. What I present in this book as a postcolonial spatiality emerges, therefore, in the wake of a lack of attention to spatial matters in contemporary debates and, indeed, a neglect of the full possibilities of studying a variety of spatial locations. the rise of the spatial as a factor for critical consideration, what Doreen Massey refers to as the ‘inherent spatiality of the world’ (7), has been a comparatively recent phenomenon; while Immanuel Kant may have privileged space in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
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