The line and the circle. Richard Flanagan and «the strange, terrible neverendingness of human beings»
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13130/2037-2426/14442Keywords:
Post-Postmodernism, Contemporary fiction, Second World War, Richard Flanagan, BuddhismAbstract
The paper concerns the representation of the Second World War in twenty-first-century fiction. By using Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North as a case study, I show how contemporary fiction about the war avoids both the postmemorial paradigm that characterized the late twentieth-century, and postmodern historiographic metafiction. By recovering and renewing the traditional tropes of the nineteenth-century novel, together with eclectic references to Zen art forms (haiku and ensō), The Narrow Road to the Deep North offers an anti-rhetoric and anti-nationalistic approach to the historical fiction about the Second World War. Far from being a merely ornamental addition, the references to Zen Buddhism complicate the issues discussed in the novel, from the memory of the war in Australia and Japan to colonial power structures, offering an idea of history as knowable, but also as dynamic and plastic.
References
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Autore, Migi. Le dieci icone del bue. L’incanto poetico della via del risveglio in un antico testo Ch’an Zen. Erga Edizioni, 1991.
Bashō. Bashō’s Journey. The Literary Prose of Matsuo Bashō. A cura di e tradotto da David Landis Barnhill, State University of New York Press, 2005.
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Burne, Peter. Descent into Hell. The Fall of Singapore – Pudu and Changi – The Thai-Burma Railway. Allen and Unwin, 2014.
Calder, Angus. The Myth of the Blitz. Pimlico, 1991.
Caprio, Mark E. Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 1910-1945. University of Washington Press, 2009.
Cicuzza, Claudio, e Francesco Sferra. “Glossario.” La rivelazione del Buddha. I testi antichi, a cura di Raniero Gnoli, Mondadori 2001, pp. 1325-1359.
Daizen Victoria, Brian. Zen at War. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006.
Davis Hanson, Victor. The Western Way of War. Infantry Battle in Classical Greece. California University Press, 1989.
Dixon, Robert. “‘Communications from Below’. Scalar Transformations in Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013) and Steven Carrol’s A World of Other People (2013).” Antipodes, 31, 1, 2017, pp. 184-205.
Duthie, Fiona. “Enemies of Honor: Heroes and Prisoners of War in Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Tom Keneally’s Shame and the Captives.” Antipodes, 30, 1, 2016, pp. 159–171.
Flanagan, Richard. The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Random House, 2013a. Tradotto da Elena Malanga, La strada stretta verso il profondo Nord. Bompiani, 2018.
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Heine, Steven e Dale S. Wright. “Introduction: Kōan Tradition – Self-Narrative and Contemporary Perspectives.” The Kōan. Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism, a cura di Steve Heine e Dale S. Wright, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 3-14.
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Kato, Megumi. “Testimony of War: Australian Memoirs and Fiction in the Pacific War.” Life Writing, 14, 4, 2017, pp. 475-484.
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McKay, Daniel. “Guarded Truths: Korean Characters in POW Narratives and POW Narratives in Korean History.” Studia Neophilologica, 90, 1, 2018, pp. 44-55.
Mumon, Yamada. Lectures on the Ten Oxherding Pictures. University of Hawai’I Press, 2004.
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Pasqualotto, Giangiorgio. L’estetica del vuoto. Marsilio, 1992.
---. Figure di pensiero. Marsilio, 2007.
Rhee, M.J. The Doomed Empire: Japan in Colonial Korea. Ashgate, 1997.
Scurati, Antonio. Guerra. Narrazioni e culture nella tradizione occidentale. Donzelli, 2003.
---. “Un sanguinoso desiderio di luce. Le forme della guerra come invenzione letteraria.” Un fascino osceno. Guerra e violenza nella letteratura e nel cinema, a cura di Stefano Rosso, ombre corte, 2006, pp. 17-29.
Smith, Rupert. The Utility of Force. The Art of War in the Modern World. Penguin Books, 2006.
Seo, Audrey Yoshiko. Ensō. Zen Circles of Enlightenment. Weatherhill, 2007.
Staniforth, Martin. “‘Shades of the prison house’: Reading Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Peter Carey’s Amnesia.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 53, 5, 2017, pp. 578-589.
Tanaka, Yuki. Hidden Horrors. Japanese War Crimes in World War II. Westview Press, 1996.
Toth, Josh. “Toni Morrison’s Beloved and the Rise of Historioplastic Metafiction.” Metamodernism. Historicity, Affect, and Depth After Postmodernism, a cura di Robin van den Akker, Alison Gibbons, and Timotheus Vermeulen, Rowman & Littlefield, 2017, pp. 41-53.
---. “Historioplastic Metafiction. Tarantino, Nolan, and the ‘Return to Hegel’.” Cultural Critique, 99, 2018, pp. 1-30.
Tsurumi, Patricia E. “Colonial Education in Korea and Taiwan.” The Japanese Colonial Empire, a cura di Ramon H. Myers e Mark R. Peattie, Princeton University Press, 1984, pp. 275-311.
Ueda, Shizuteru. Zen e filosofía. L’Epos, 2006.
Utsumi, Aiko, Ikemi Nakamura e Gil Heong-yun. “Lee Hak Rae, the Korean Connection and Japanese War Crimes on the Burma-Thai Railway.” The Asia Pacific Journal 5, 8, 2007. Consultabile presso: http://apjjf.org/-Aiko-Utsumi/2505/article.html [ultimo accesso: 27/07/20].
Van Creveld, Martin. The Transformation of War. The Free Press, 1991.
Wieviorka, Annette. L’Ère du Témoin. Plon, 1998.
Atkins, Taylor E. Primitive Selves. Koreana in the Japanese Colonial Gaze, 1910-1945. University of California Press, 2010.
Autore, Migi. Le dieci icone del bue. L’incanto poetico della via del risveglio in un antico testo Ch’an Zen. Erga Edizioni, 1991.
Bashō. Bashō’s Journey. The Literary Prose of Matsuo Bashō. A cura di e tradotto da David Landis Barnhill, State University of New York Press, 2005.
Bauman, Zygmunt. Modernity and the Holocaust. Polity, 1989.
Beaumont, Joan e Andrea Witcomb. “The Thai-Burma Railway. Asymmetrical and Transnational Memories.” The Pacific War: Aftermaths. Remembrance and Culture, a cura di Christina Twomey e Ernest Koh. Routledge, 2015, pp. 67-87.
Benesch, Oleg. Inventing the Way of the Samurai. Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushidō in Modern Japan. Oxford University Press, 2014.
Birns, Nicholas. “The New Historical Novel. Putting Mid-Twentieth-Century Australia into Perspective.” Commonwealth Essays and Studies, 41, 1, 2018, pp. 7-18.
Bowden, Tim. The Changi Camera. A Unique Record of Changi and the Thai-Burma Railway. Hachette, 2012.
Burne, Peter. Descent into Hell. The Fall of Singapore – Pudu and Changi – The Thai-Burma Railway. Allen and Unwin, 2014.
Calder, Angus. The Myth of the Blitz. Pimlico, 1991.
Caprio, Mark E. Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, 1910-1945. University of Washington Press, 2009.
Cicuzza, Claudio, e Francesco Sferra. “Glossario.” La rivelazione del Buddha. I testi antichi, a cura di Raniero Gnoli, Mondadori 2001, pp. 1325-1359.
Daizen Victoria, Brian. Zen at War. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006.
Davis Hanson, Victor. The Western Way of War. Infantry Battle in Classical Greece. California University Press, 1989.
Dixon, Robert. “‘Communications from Below’. Scalar Transformations in Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013) and Steven Carrol’s A World of Other People (2013).” Antipodes, 31, 1, 2017, pp. 184-205.
Duthie, Fiona. “Enemies of Honor: Heroes and Prisoners of War in Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Tom Keneally’s Shame and the Captives.” Antipodes, 30, 1, 2016, pp. 159–171.
Flanagan, Richard. The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Random House, 2013a. Tradotto da Elena Malanga, La strada stretta verso il profondo Nord. Bompiani, 2018.
---. “Freeing my father.” The Sydney Morning Herald, 21/11/2013b. Consultabile presso http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/freeing-my-father-20130915-2ttiz.html [ultimo accesso: 27/07/2020]
---. “Richard Flanagan Webchat – As It Happened.” The Guardian, 8/10/2014. Consultabile presso: https://www.theguardian.com/books/live/2014/oct/08/post-your-questions-for-richard-flanagan [ultimo accesso: 27/07/20].
Ghilardi, Marcello. Arte e pensiero in Giappone. Corpo, immagine, gesto. Mimesis, 2011.
Gier, Nicholas F. The Origins of Religious Violence. An Asian Perspective. Lexington Books, 2014.
Heine, Steven e Dale S. Wright. “Introduction: Kōan Tradition – Self-Narrative and Contemporary Perspectives.” The Kōan. Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism, a cura di Steve Heine e Dale S. Wright, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 3-14.
Hirsch, Marianne. Family Frames. Photography, Narrative and Postmemory. Harvard University Press, 2002.
---. The Generation of Postmemory. Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. Columbia University Press, 2012.
Hotta, Eri. Pan-Asianism and Japan’s War 1931-1945. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Hutcheon, Linda. The Poetics of Postmodernism. Routledge, 1988.
Kato, Megumi. “Testimony of War: Australian Memoirs and Fiction in the Pacific War.” Life Writing, 14, 4, 2017, pp. 475-484.
Kerkham, Eleanor. “Introduction. Haikai Intersections.” Matsuo Bashō’s Poetic Spaces. Exploting Haikai Intersections, a cura di Eleanor Kerkham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 1-22.
Lobetti, Tullio Federico. Ascetic Practices in Japanese Religion. Routledge, 2014.
McKay, Daniel. “Guarded Truths: Korean Characters in POW Narratives and POW Narratives in Korean History.” Studia Neophilologica, 90, 1, 2018, pp. 44-55.
Mumon, Yamada. Lectures on the Ten Oxherding Pictures. University of Hawai’I Press, 2004.
Parker, Geoffrey. The Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare. The Triumph of the West. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Pasqualotto, Giangiorgio. L’estetica del vuoto. Marsilio, 1992.
---. Figure di pensiero. Marsilio, 2007.
Rhee, M.J. The Doomed Empire: Japan in Colonial Korea. Ashgate, 1997.
Scurati, Antonio. Guerra. Narrazioni e culture nella tradizione occidentale. Donzelli, 2003.
---. “Un sanguinoso desiderio di luce. Le forme della guerra come invenzione letteraria.” Un fascino osceno. Guerra e violenza nella letteratura e nel cinema, a cura di Stefano Rosso, ombre corte, 2006, pp. 17-29.
Smith, Rupert. The Utility of Force. The Art of War in the Modern World. Penguin Books, 2006.
Seo, Audrey Yoshiko. Ensō. Zen Circles of Enlightenment. Weatherhill, 2007.
Staniforth, Martin. “‘Shades of the prison house’: Reading Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Peter Carey’s Amnesia.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 53, 5, 2017, pp. 578-589.
Tanaka, Yuki. Hidden Horrors. Japanese War Crimes in World War II. Westview Press, 1996.
Toth, Josh. “Toni Morrison’s Beloved and the Rise of Historioplastic Metafiction.” Metamodernism. Historicity, Affect, and Depth After Postmodernism, a cura di Robin van den Akker, Alison Gibbons, and Timotheus Vermeulen, Rowman & Littlefield, 2017, pp. 41-53.
---. “Historioplastic Metafiction. Tarantino, Nolan, and the ‘Return to Hegel’.” Cultural Critique, 99, 2018, pp. 1-30.
Tsurumi, Patricia E. “Colonial Education in Korea and Taiwan.” The Japanese Colonial Empire, a cura di Ramon H. Myers e Mark R. Peattie, Princeton University Press, 1984, pp. 275-311.
Ueda, Shizuteru. Zen e filosofía. L’Epos, 2006.
Utsumi, Aiko, Ikemi Nakamura e Gil Heong-yun. “Lee Hak Rae, the Korean Connection and Japanese War Crimes on the Burma-Thai Railway.” The Asia Pacific Journal 5, 8, 2007. Consultabile presso: http://apjjf.org/-Aiko-Utsumi/2505/article.html [ultimo accesso: 27/07/20].
Van Creveld, Martin. The Transformation of War. The Free Press, 1991.
Wieviorka, Annette. L’Ère du Témoin. Plon, 1998.
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Published
2021-07-09
How to Cite
Malvestio, M. (2021). The line and the circle. Richard Flanagan and «the strange, terrible neverendingness of human beings». ENTHYMEMA, (27), 44–61. https://doi.org/10.13130/2037-2426/14442
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Received 2020-10-22
Accepted 2021-04-23
Published 2021-07-09
Accepted 2021-04-23
Published 2021-07-09
