Title: Martin Amis's The Pregnant Widow as a postmodern confessional novel
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2018, vol. 44, iss. 2, pp. [77]-89
Extent
[77]-89
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2018-2-5
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/140978
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
In this article I read Martin Amis's The Pregnant Widow as a confessional novel in relation to the profound postmodern skepticism about the language of truthfulness and format constrains of consummated confession. In addition to the contemporary discourse about confessional writing, I apply Jacques Derrida's idea of restructuring of personal memory traces and Mikhail Bakhtin's idea of confession with a loophole. I argue that in his autobiographical and self-reflexive novel Amis addresses his fictional doubles in wish to make sense of his personal traumatic experience and doubts multiple narrative and analytical frames directed towards closure and consummation of the Self.
References
[1] Amis, Martin (1995) The Information. London: Flamingo.
[2] Amis, Martin (2011) The Pregnant Widow. London: Vintage Books.
[3] Adami, Valentina (2008) Martin Amis's Time Arrow as Trauma Fiction. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
[4] Anderson, Sam (2010) The return of Martin Amis. New York Magazine, 7 May, Web. http://www.nymag.com/arts/books/reviews/65889 (Accessed on 2 May 2017).
[5] Austen, Jane (1994) Northanger Abbey. New York: Penguin books.
[6] Axthelm, Peter (1967) The Modern Confessional Novel. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
[7] Bakhtin, Mikhail (1984) Problems of Dostoevsky's poetics, Trans. Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
[8] Bakhtin, Mikhail (1990) Author and hero in aesthetic activity. In: Art and Answerability: Early Philosophical Essays by M.M. Bakhtin. Trans. Vadim Liapunov. Austin: Texas University Press, 4–256.
[9] Derrida, Jacques and Jeffrey Mehlman (1972) Freud and the scene of writing. Yale French Studies 48, 74–117. | DOI 10.2307/2929625
[10] Diedrick, James (2004) Understanding Martin Amis. South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press.
[11] Erdinast-Vulcan, Daphna (2008) The I that tells itself: A Bakhtinian perspective on narrative identity. Narrative 16 (1), 1–15. | DOI 10.1353/nar.2008.0005
[12] Erdinast-Vulcan, Daphna (1997) Borderlines and contraband: Bakhtin and the question of the subject. Poetics Today 18 (2), 251–269. | DOI 10.2307/1773434
[13] Gill, Jo (2006) Introduction. In: Gill, Jo (ed.) Modern Confessional Writing. London and New York: Routledge, 1–10.
[14] Higdon, David (1991) Unconfessed confessions: the narrators of Graham Swift and Julian Barnes. In: Acheson, James (ed.) The British and Irish Novel Since 1960. New York: St. Martin's Press, 174–191.
[15] Hornung, Alfred (1987) Reading one/self: Samuel Beckett, Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, John Barth, Alain Robbe-Grillet. In: Calinesku Matei and Douwe Fokkema (eds.) Exploring Postmodernism. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 175–198.
[16] Hartman, Geoffrey H. (1995) On traumatic knowledge and literary studies. New Literary History 26, 537–563. | DOI 10.1353/nlh.1995.0043
[17] Laurence, Alexander and Kathleen McGee. No More Illusions. The Write Stuff [Interviews] Web. http://www.altx.com/int2/martin.amis.html (Accessed on 2 May 2017).
[18] Lodge, David (1977) The Modes of Modern Writing: Metaphor, Metonymy, and the Typology of Modern Literature. Cornell University Press.
[19] Nicol, Bran (2006) Dave Eggers and the memoir as self-destruction. In: Gill, Jo (ed.) Modern Confessional Writing. London and New York: Routledge, 100–114.
[20] Rawson, Claude (2011) The Cambridge Companion to English Poets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[21] Thaden, Barbara Z. (1987) Bakhtin, Dostoevsky, and the status of the 'I'. Dostoevsky Studies 8, 200–207.
[22] Whitehead, Anne (2004) Trauma Fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
[2] Amis, Martin (2011) The Pregnant Widow. London: Vintage Books.
[3] Adami, Valentina (2008) Martin Amis's Time Arrow as Trauma Fiction. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
[4] Anderson, Sam (2010) The return of Martin Amis. New York Magazine, 7 May, Web. http://www.nymag.com/arts/books/reviews/65889 (Accessed on 2 May 2017).
[5] Austen, Jane (1994) Northanger Abbey. New York: Penguin books.
[6] Axthelm, Peter (1967) The Modern Confessional Novel. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
[7] Bakhtin, Mikhail (1984) Problems of Dostoevsky's poetics, Trans. Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
[8] Bakhtin, Mikhail (1990) Author and hero in aesthetic activity. In: Art and Answerability: Early Philosophical Essays by M.M. Bakhtin. Trans. Vadim Liapunov. Austin: Texas University Press, 4–256.
[9] Derrida, Jacques and Jeffrey Mehlman (1972) Freud and the scene of writing. Yale French Studies 48, 74–117. | DOI 10.2307/2929625
[10] Diedrick, James (2004) Understanding Martin Amis. South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press.
[11] Erdinast-Vulcan, Daphna (2008) The I that tells itself: A Bakhtinian perspective on narrative identity. Narrative 16 (1), 1–15. | DOI 10.1353/nar.2008.0005
[12] Erdinast-Vulcan, Daphna (1997) Borderlines and contraband: Bakhtin and the question of the subject. Poetics Today 18 (2), 251–269. | DOI 10.2307/1773434
[13] Gill, Jo (2006) Introduction. In: Gill, Jo (ed.) Modern Confessional Writing. London and New York: Routledge, 1–10.
[14] Higdon, David (1991) Unconfessed confessions: the narrators of Graham Swift and Julian Barnes. In: Acheson, James (ed.) The British and Irish Novel Since 1960. New York: St. Martin's Press, 174–191.
[15] Hornung, Alfred (1987) Reading one/self: Samuel Beckett, Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, John Barth, Alain Robbe-Grillet. In: Calinesku Matei and Douwe Fokkema (eds.) Exploring Postmodernism. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 175–198.
[16] Hartman, Geoffrey H. (1995) On traumatic knowledge and literary studies. New Literary History 26, 537–563. | DOI 10.1353/nlh.1995.0043
[17] Laurence, Alexander and Kathleen McGee. No More Illusions. The Write Stuff [Interviews] Web. http://www.altx.com/int2/martin.amis.html (Accessed on 2 May 2017).
[18] Lodge, David (1977) The Modes of Modern Writing: Metaphor, Metonymy, and the Typology of Modern Literature. Cornell University Press.
[19] Nicol, Bran (2006) Dave Eggers and the memoir as self-destruction. In: Gill, Jo (ed.) Modern Confessional Writing. London and New York: Routledge, 100–114.
[20] Rawson, Claude (2011) The Cambridge Companion to English Poets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[21] Thaden, Barbara Z. (1987) Bakhtin, Dostoevsky, and the status of the 'I'. Dostoevsky Studies 8, 200–207.
[22] Whitehead, Anne (2004) Trauma Fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.