The Prosthetic Imagination: A History of the Novel as Artificial Life PDF
Preview The Prosthetic Imagination: A History of the Novel as Artificial Life
THE PROSTHETIC IMAGINATION InTheProstheticImagination,leadingcriticPeterBoxallarguesthat wearenowenteringanartificialage,inwhichourgivenbodiesenter intonewconjunctionswithourprostheticextensions.Thisnewage requires us to reimagine our relation to our bodies, and to our environments, and Boxall suggests that the novel as a form can guide us in this imaginative task. Across a dazzling range of prose fictions,fromThomasMore’sUtopiatoMargaretAtwood’sOryxand Crake,Boxallshowshowthenovelhasplayedacentralroleinforging the bodies in which we extend ourselves into the world. But if the novel has helped to give our world a human shape, it also contains formsoflifethateludeourexistinghumanarchitectures:newamal- gamsofthelivingandthenon-livingthatarethehiddenprovinceof thenovelimagination.Theselatentconjunctions,Boxallargues,are preservedinthenovelform,andofferusimagesofembodiedbeing thatcanhelpusorientourselvestoournewprostheticcondition. peter boxall is Professor of English at the University of Sussex. HisbooksincludeDonDeLillo:ThePossibilityofFiction(2006),Since Beckett: Contemporary Writing in the Wake of Modernism (2009), Twenty-First-Century Fiction: A Critical Introduction (2013) and The Value of the Novel (2015). He has edited a number of collections, including Thinking Poetry and Beckett/Aesthetics/Politics, and an edi- tion of Beckett’s novel Malone Dies. He is co-editor, with Bryan Cheyette,ofvolume7ofthe OxfordHistoryoftheNovelin English, and editor of The Cambridge Companion to British Fiction, 1980-the Present, and of the bestselling 1001 Books. He is also the editor of TextualPractice,andtheserieseditorofCambridgeStudiesinTwenty- First-CenturyLiteratureandCulture. THE PROSTHETIC IMAGINATION fi A History of the Novel as Arti cial Life PETER BOXALL UniversityofSussex UniversityPrintingHouse,Cambridgecb28bs,UnitedKingdom OneLibertyPlaza,20thFloor,NewYork,ny10006,USA 477WilliamstownRoad,PortMelbourne,vic3207,Australia 314–321,3rdFloor,Plot3,SplendorForum,JasolaDistrictCentre, NewDelhi–110025,India 79AnsonRoad,#06–04/06,Singapore079906 CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge. ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof education,learning,andresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence. www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781108836487 doi:10.1017/9781108871297 ©PeterBoxall2020 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2020 PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyTJInternationalLtd,PadstowCornwall AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. names:Boxall,Peter,author. title:Theprostheticimagination:ahistoryofthenovelasartificiallife/PeterBoxall. description:Cambridge;NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress,2020.|Includes bibliographicalreferencesandindex. identifiers:lccn2020009193|isbn9781108836487(hardback)|isbn9781108871297 (ebook) subjects:lcsh:Fiction–Historyandcriticism.|Realisminliterature.|Mimesisinliterature.| Humanbodyinliterature.|Humanityinliterature.|Modernism(Literature) classification:lccpn3347.b652020|ddc808.3–dc23 LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2020009193 isbn978-1-108-83648-7Hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof URLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain, accurateorappropriate. For Hannah LivingIdie,andasmybreath Dies,deathrecallsmeintolifeagain. Cervantes,DonQuixote Myentireselftremblesontheedgeofbeingandnot-being. Goethe,TheSorrowsofYoungWerther Thereisnocreaturewhoseinwardbeingissostrongthatitisnot greatlydeterminedbywhatliesoutsideit. GeorgeEliot,Middlemarch TheonlytoolIpossessismyforehead. FranzKafka,‘TheBurrow’ IfIhadtheuseofmybodyIwouldthrowitoutofthewindow. SamuelBeckett,MaloneDies Myfootisanobject.Outsidemyself.Itexists. ChristineBrooke-Rose,‘TheFoot’ Hisshoulderslurkedbeneaththatjacket,hisvoice,hishands–all real.Theyexisted,reallyexisted,somewhere. ToniMorrison,TheBluestEye I’msomeonewhoissupposedtobeme. DonDeLillo,ZeroK Contents ListofIllustrations pageix Acknowledgements x Introduction MimesisandProsthesis 1 part i the body and the early modern state: from more to cavendish 25 1 Fiction,theBodyandtheState 27 1.1 Anatomy,EarlyModernityandtheProstheticImagination 27 1.2 UtopianSelf-FashioningfromMoretoCavendish 40 1.3 TheProstheticImaginationintheEarlyNovelForm 52 part ii the colonial body: from behn to goethe 71 2 EconomiesofScalefromAphraBehntoSarahScott 73 2.1 ColonialismandtheWorldPictureintheEighteenth-CenturyNovel 73 2.2 InvisibleInk:Self-FashioningandSelf-ErasureinDanielDefoe 85 2.3 AContinuationoftheBrain:UnregulatedBodiesinSwiftandScott 99 3 OrganicAestheticsfromRichardsontoGoethe 117 3.1 TheOrganicandtheMechanic 117 3.2 TheFullandtheEmpty 127 3.3 AttachmentandEvasion 137 part iii the manufactured body: from wollstonecraft to stoker 147 4 TheDeadHand:RealismandBiomaterialinthe Nineteenth-CenturyNovel 149 4.1 IronyandBiocritiquefromWollstonecrafttoAusten 149 vii viii Contents 4.2 TheDyer’sHand:NarrativeandBiomaterialinDickensandEliot 163 4.3 AnInsideNarrative:ProstheticLifeinMelville 185 5 StrangeAffinity:GothicProstheticsfromShelleytoStoker 201 part iv the modernist body: from james to beckett 223 6 ADuplicationofConsciousness:Realism,Modernism andProstheticSelf-Fashioning 225 6.1 ModernismandtheFindeSiècle 225 6.2 ArtandEmbodimentinJamesandWharton 239 7 AllTwinedTogether:ProstheticModernismfromProustto Beckett 258 7.1 SurvivalandAnnihilationEntwinedwithinMe:Gathering andDispersalintheModernistNovel 258 7.2 AnUnintelligibleLandscapeofAtoms:UntwiningProust andJoyce 269 part v the posthuman body: from orwell to atwood 285 8 ProstheticsandSimulacra:ThePostmodernNovel 287 8.1 TheLimitsoftheWord 287 8.2 Like-Lines:SimulacralProstheticsinMorrisonandPynchon 300 9 ProstheticWorldsintheTwenty-First-CenturyNovel 319 9.1 World,Nature,Culture 319 9.2 Hand,Face,Wall 326 9.3 Mind,Body,World 337 Notes 355 Bibliography 383 Index 401 Illustrations 1.1 AndreasVesalius,‘WoodcutPortraitofAndreasVesalius’. page31 AttributedtoJohnofCalcar,PortraitofAndreasVesalius, 1542,woodcut,frontispiecetoAndreasVesalius,Fabric oftheHumanBody,BritishLibrarycollections. 1.2 RembrandtvanRijn,TheAnatomyLessonofDrNicolaesTulp, 35 1632,oiloncanvas,Mauritshuis,TheHague. 3.1 Jaquet-Droz,‘WritingBoy’.PierreJaquet-Droz,TheWriter, 122 1774,clockworkautomaton,Muséed’Artetd’Histoirede Neuchâtel.PhotographbyRama. ix
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