Fictionalising Trauma

Transcription

1 Fictionalising Trauma The Aesthetics of Marguerite Duras s India Cycle Bearbeitet von Sirkka Knuuttila 1. Auflage Buch. 310 S. Hardcover ISBN Format (B x L): 14 x 21 cm Gewicht: 500 g Weitere Fachgebiete > Literatur, Sprache > Romanische, französische Literaturen > Französische Literatur schnell und portofrei erhältlich bei Die Online-Fachbuchhandlung beck-shop.de ist spezialisiert auf Fachbücher, insbesondere Recht, Steuern und Wirtschaft. Im Sortiment finden Sie alle Medien (Bücher, Zeitschriften, CDs, ebooks, etc.) aller Verlage. Ergänzt wird das Programm durch Services wie Neuerscheinungsdienst oder Zusammenstellungen von Büchern zu Sonderpreisen. Der Shop führt mehr als 8 Millionen Produkte.

2 Preface The aim of this study is to offer a postcolonial analysis of Marguerite Duras s transgeneric series entitled the India Cycle ( ). Being a revised version of my dissertation in comparative literature published at the University of Helsinki in 2009, the book examines Duras s aesthetics from the viewpoint of cognitive literary and film theories. The intention is to offer an alternative to the universalising psychoanalytic interpretations that became canonical in Durasian Euro-American exegesis during the course of the seventies and eighties. For, while a postcolonial perspective on Duras s stylistics was long-awaited, a new interpretative line of study could be discerned only ten years ago in Martin Crowley s examination of Duras s ethics and Jane Bradley Winston s postcolonial analysis on Duras s early works. Finding these studies insightful and pertinent, I have followed this avenue. But I also wanted to adapt my expertise as a literary researcher to my knowledge as a medical practitioner. My interest in an emotion-focused cognitive study grew from the middle of the nineties, when Antonio Damasio s Descartes Error (1994) saw the light of day. Then the relational concept of an embodied mind was rapidly developing in social neuroscience, while in parallel the basic theses of cognitive poetics were put forward in Poetics Today between 2002 and This guided me to focus on the audio-visual talent with which Duras transforms her embodied memory of historical trauma into arts. By using the concept of trauma as a prismatic tool, I could effectively reveal the dual strategy concerning how Duras juxtaposes ethnic, sexual and social marginalisation with self-destructive imperialism. As an outcome, my study departs from the traditional view of melancholy in both the author and her works, thus broadening the narrow concept of Duras as a writer of l écriture feminine. Moreover, typically, in the India Cycle the dramatic exchange of small nonverbal signs creates an excess of information that carries in itself emotionally tuned cognitive content, which draws attention to a creative metaphoricalisation of metonymy in a cyclic structure. An impressive dual strategy was to be found, again: whereas Duras s interfigural metonymies tend to compel the reader/viewer to identify her/himself with the traumatised characters, during repetition variation, several metatextual methods awaken one s self-reflexive autobiographical competence which detaches one from mimetic identification. In my view, this is the stylistic foundation which gives a critical undertone to Duras s narrativisation of trauma. 7

3 Ultimately, hoping that my book can illuminate Duras s significance as an artist of historical trauma in the latter half of the 20 th century, I want to increase awareness of the reader/viewer s position as a witness to man-made disasters. While the human psychic response to sudden catastrophe has obviously remained unaltered through time, thanks to new neuroimaging methods, our understanding of traumatic memory and interpersonal neurology is increasing. But simultaneously, the forms of violence in everyday life are continually changing, while technical innovations mediating representations of trauma are tending to create a numbness towards the other s distress in our current era of terrorism. This condition sets new goals for a continual updating of interdisciplinary trauma theories as well as humanist research on trauma s representation in the new media, as I implicitly propose with this study. 8

4 Acknowledgements It was more than natural that Marguerite Duras s intergeneric art proved to be for me the most appealing corpus for a closer examination of the aesthetics of trauma. Since the late seventies, I had pondered on how much of the unsayable is mediated visually through the expressive powers of the body in human interaction, while non-verbal language seemed to me to play a central role in all interpersonal communication. Therefore, first of all, I would like to thank two indispensable persons who opened the pathway towards this study. The first is Dr Franciska Skutta, who in 1993 in Kossuth Lajos University, Hungary, revealed to me Duras s cyclic style, and the second is Professor Riitta Hari who in 1995 introduced me to the Damasian relational concept of an embodied mind. For the practical impetus to write the study I would like to thank my supervisors, Professors of Comparative Literature, Hannu Riikonen and Heta Pyrhönen from the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Arts. Hannu Riikonen sensibly helped me to seek guidance from Professor Christopher Prendergast, whose comment turned my attention to Duras s style as a criticism of modern society. Heta Pyrhönen valuably indicated to me the seminal interdisciplinary sources of trauma narratives, and appositely criticised the theoretical and semantic content of the study. I am also grateful to Professor Mervi Helkkula from the University of Helsinki for the supervision of the examination process, and to Docent Päivi Kosonen from the University of Tampere for her general remarks on Duras research. My most respectful appreciation goes to Professor Leslie Hill from the University of Warwick for his insightful evaluation of the completed study. Special thanks go also to a number of experts who have commented on several parts of my thesis presented in international seminars and conferences, mostly arranged by the graduate school of Comparative Literature, and the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. Professor Patricia Waugh encouraged me to continue with interpreting the Durasian oeuvre as trauma fiction, and Professor Marie Laure Ryan gave me feedback on possible world theory adapted to Durasian cinema. As the growing interest in cognitive poetics brought several prominent scholars to Helsinki, Professor David S. Miall kindly invited me to the University of Alberta, department of English and Film Studies, where I could familiarise myself as a visiting scholar with the problems of empirical reading in the REDES group. I send my full-hearted thanks to David and his co-director, Professor Don Kuiken, 9

5 for their intellectual and social generosity as well as the relaxed, warm atmosphere in their seminars. During the final phase, Professor Suzanne Keen provided me with good feedback on my analysis of Duras s anti-racism and the developing notion of postrational subjectivity, while Professor Mieke Bal presented a welcome critical remark which smoothed my exaggerated interpretation of Duras s cinematic anticolonialism. Further fruitful contacts were created at the International Literature and Psychology Conference, from which Professor Suzette Henke s expertise on trauma narratives helped me keep up and refine my riveting and tenebrous theme. I was also invited by Professor Ivo Cermak and Dr Ida Kodrlova to the European Psychology Congress in Prague, where I could condense my central thoughts about symbolising trauma, in the workshop dealing with Psychology and Art. All these meetings helped me evaluate Duras s work as part of the postmodernist reaction to modernism in terms of trauma. In Finland I was warmly received in Professor Eero Tarasti s seminar on existential semiotics in the University of Helsinki, which led me to share my ideas on trauma in the world congresses of the International Association of Semiotic Studies. Thanks to this initial support, I was drawn by Professor Harri Veivo to the literary semiotics international group, which gave me a rewarding opportunity to elaborate on the semiotics of emotion in literary research. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Henry Bacon s remarks on my elementary analysis of Durasian film, and his assistance in finding the most topical sources of cognitive film theory. Moreover, Laura S. Karttunen kindly arranged my lecture on trauma fiction on behalf of Professors Juhani Niemi and Amos Pasternack at the University of Tampere. These occasions promoted my work by clarifying the close cooperation of emotion and cognition in converting traumatic memory into art. Having presented several parts of the work at the literary research seminars in the Department of Comparative Literature of my own University, I send my warmest thanks to all the participants whose comments helped to sharpen my pencil, in particular Martti-Tapio Kuuskoski, Tiina-Käkelä Puumala and Susanna Suomela, as well as semioticians Merja Bauters and Ulla Vuorinen. Among a number of native English teachers at the Language Center, Professor Henry Fullenwider and Kathleen Moore deserve special regard. For help in translating Duras s ambiguous text from French into Finnish, I cordially thank Paul Parant. I would also like to express my appreciation for Dr Anne Epstein s views during our informal discussions about my topic, and for my medical colleague Dr Beatrix Redemann s remarks concerning emotion-focused cognitive therapy. And invaluably, my cognitive therapist, Meri Vartiainen, made the conclusive phase of the study spiritually possible, facilitating the fact that I kept on practising as a medical doctor. 10

6 My thesis would never have seen the light of day without the grants from the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Helsinki, and the financial support of foundations such as Vetenskapstiftelsen för Kvinnor / Naisten Tiedesäätiö, the Niilo Helander Foundation, the Otto A. Malmi Foundation, and the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation. In applying for most of these grants, my supervisors, Hannu Riikonen and Heta Pyrhönen, lent a helping hand. Also the assistance of the willing staff of three libraries was irreplaceable. Along with the staff of the Finnish Film Archive, Dr Eeva Kurki provided me with an early video selection of Duras s films; from the University of Helsinki Libraries, Liisa Koski supplied me with Duras research from all around the world; and the University of Alberta Libraries offered me important works on Duras, cognitive theories and trauma. For the revision of the written study I owe a full-hearted thanks to Lisa Muszynski from the University of Helsinki s Language Services, whose tireless and careful proofreading over the course of the writing was indispensable, including the final revision of this book. Our intellectual conversations on cognition, emotion and theories on historiography made us even better friends, based on a mutual recognition of similar spatial thinking long before this linguistic cooperation. For the revision of the parts dealing with the traumatic index, Duras s film and the conclusion I should like to thank John Gage for his good taste in language. The cover photo of the hollyhock Nigra is taken by garden architect Raisa Luomi, while the skilled layout of the cover is made by graphic artist Visa Knuuttila, to both of whom I owe a big thank you. From among a number of friends, I gratefully think of my performance collaborator Raija Pesonen s humorous and incomparable creativity on questions of trauma, and of her and Jaakko Onkamo s hospitality in Joensuu and Liperi. With my dearest soulmate from Zürich, Yost Wächter, I shared the ideas concerning visual arts, and with novelist Rauni Paalanen the joys and sorrows of poetry and translation. My loving thoughts go also to Raisa Luomi and Marja-Leena Soininen, who hosted me in Perniö and Nummenkylä during some stressful periods of working. Likewise I am grateful to my school friend Marketta Mäkinen who offered me two natural paradises for writing in Siuro and in Nerja. From among my children s many friends who have inspired me with their art, I particularly think of travel artist Teemu Takatalo, butoh dancer Thomai Maganari with her little son, Triandafilos, and musician Simo Laihonen. And finally, I thank my old friend Antero Kare from the avant-garde group the Harvesters for his kind consideration when I was stylising the eventual version of this book. Ultimately, I would like to express my most loving thanks to my children Visa, Raila and Varpu Knuuttila, who patiently support me with their innate energy. Our conversations on creative life all over the world are for me an endless source of enjoyment. I feel a humble respect for Visa s uncompromising devotion 11

7 to art in life, while one of my greatest pleasures is to learn from Raila s talent for intuitively finding profound wisdom in human nature. And what continually fills me with admiration is Varpu s graceful, insistent striving towards her own, sovereign experiential truth. 12