The Locked Room (fragmento)

Traducción de Sofía Estéve

Paul Auster’s The Locked Room as a critique of the hyperreal

Auster’s The Locked Room (1986) presents a protagonist in a desperate quest for a lost character whose absence functions as the only significant storyline to which the narrative unfolds. Although, stylistically, the entire plot revolves around the disappeared Fanshawe, nowhere in the narrative can the reader identify with certainty any traces of his actual existence. Fanshawe never appears in the story, but all the characters and their lives centre firmly upon him, thereby creating the illusion that without his appearance their lives can never be fully restored nor can they make any real sense. Taking into account Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality, this research tries to demonstrate that what Auster’s characters go through is living obsessively with a nonpresent inaccessible Fanshawe whose abrupt disappearance leaves no clue of his existence, but just a lost memory which haunts the characters’ deepest senses of reality. This claim especially strengthens itself in the end, when the reader finds out that it all has been Fanshawe’s plot to keep his family and friend in dark in order to completely vanish from the realm of the real

Chesterton en Borges

A partir de los aportes críticos de Enrique Anderson Imbert y de Umberto Eco acerca de las posibles relaciones existentes entre los escritos de Borges y Chesterton es que, en el presente trabajo, me propongo estudiar el motivo del cuarto cerrado y su relación con el detective en Seis problemas para don Isidro Parodi de Honorio Bustos Domecq (seudónimo de Adolfo Bioy Casares y Jorge Luis Borges). En tal sentido, intento fundamentar la relación paródica que a nivel de procedimientos se establece con la saga del padre Brown de Gilbert R. Chesterton. Con tal finalidad, reseño el itinerario diacrónico que los tres elementos fundamentales de este tipo de relatos -el cuarto cerrado, el detective y la víctima-, han tenido a lo largo de la historia de la literatura de índole policial con el objetivo preciso de señalar la peculiar textualización de los mismos en la obra analizada. La originalidad del tratamiento de estos motivos típicos, tanto por parte de Biorges como por parte de Chesterton, ha evitado su posible petrificación en el tiempo como tópico literario.Considering Enrique Anderson Imbert's and Emberto Eco's critical contributions on the posible relations between Borges' and Chesterton's works, this paper aims at studying the motif of the locked room and its connection to the detective in Six problems for Don Isidro Parodi by Honorio Bustos Domeq (pseudonym of Adolfo Bioy Casares and Jorge Luis Borges). In this sense, it is my purpose to support the parodic relation at the level of procedures which can be detected in relation with Gilbert K. Chesterton's Father Brown saga. To do so, there is a review of the diachronic itinerary taken by the three fundamental elements of this type of stories (the locked room, the detective, and the victim- have had through the history of detective literature. The objective is to highlight their peculiar textualization in the corpus. The original treatment of these typical motives, both by Borges and by Chesterton, has avoided any possible petrifaction in time as a literary topic.Fil: Domínguez, Marta Susana. Universidad Nacional del Su

From Floor to Sky - British Sculpture and the Studio Experience

Premier showing of Communion (2010) and slide tape First Memory (1980) Group show curated by Peter Kardia who is widely recognised for his work as a radical and pioneering educationalist at both St. Martin's School of Art and at the Royal College of Art. Invited former students. Each contributing two pieces of work, one from the early career and a contemporary piece. The show includes sculpture, painting, film and performance, bridging 30 years and provides a crucial assessment of contemporary British art and gives a unique insight into the development of each artist's work. Participating artists : Alison Wilding, Bill Woodrow, Boyd Web, Brian Catling, Carl Plackman, Carolyne Kardia, Frances Earnshaw, Gillian Cook, Guy Martin, Hamish Fulton, Ian Kirkwood, Ismail Saray, Jean Matthee, John Hilliard, John Panting, Katherine Meynell, Keith Brown, Martin Ive, Nigel Slight, Nina Danino, Paul Etienne Lincoln, Peter Ven, Richard Deason, Richard Long, Roger Ackling, Terry New. The exhibition is marked by a fully illustrated publication From Floor to Sky: The Experience of the Art School Studio, with texts by Heather Westley, Malcolm Le Grice and Peter Kardia, London A&C Black. Events : Panel Discussion: Peter Kardia "From Floor to Sky" Education and Research Practice in the Visual Arts, Clore Gallery Lecture Theatre, Tate Britain, 10 March 2010 2-day Seminar: Peter Kardia, Garth Evans and Gareth Jones to assess the "Locked Room Course and its legacy. Central St. Martin's 26 and 26 March 201

Poéticas ficcionais e percursos imaginários em City of glass de Paul Auster

Nas três narrativas que constituem The New York Trilogy – City of Glass, Ghosts e The Locked Room – Paul Auster emprega e desconstrói os elementos convencionais do romance policial, elaborando uma investigação recorrente da natureza, função e significado da linguagem, mas também da solidão, do encerramento e da problemática da identidade. A produção narrativa de Auster evoca fantasmas logocêntricos tradicionais (como a presença, a realidade e a verdade), que fazem eco do princípio de indissolubilidade entre palavra e significado, apenas para lograr esta identidade através de uma orientação textual para a marcação da ficcionalidade e consequente reforço dos efeitos de significação ilusórios. Auster altera os mecanismos logrando as expectativas do leitor em relação ao epílogo e à transparência textual, que um pacto mimético faria pressupor. O espaço vazio resultante confere ao texto uma liberdade plurissignificativa que dispersa todas as certezas e veicula o poder da criação do caos. Sob a aparência de fluência narrativa, a escrita de Paul Auster esconde uma subversão das premissas básicas da literatura realista e dos signos referenciais, numa poética auto-reflexiva ficcionalizada sobre a estruturação de universos imaginários.In the three stories that constitute The New York Trilogy – City of Glass, 2 Ghosts and The Locked Room – Paul Auster uses and deconstructs the conventional elements of the detective novel, developing a recurrent investigation of nature, function and meaning of language, but also of loneliness, closure and the identity problematic. Paul Auster’s narrative production evokes traditional logocentric ghosts (such as presence, reality and truth), which echo the indissolubility principle between word and meaning, only to dupe this identity through a textual guidance for marking the fiction and consequent reinforcement of the illusory significance effects. Auster alters the mechanisms deceiving the readers’ expectations regarding the epilogue and the textual transparency, which a mimetic pact would suggest. The resulting empty space gives the text a multi-meaning freedom which scatters all certainties and conveys the power of creating a chaos. Under the semblance of narrative fluency, Paul Auster’s writing hides a subversion of the basic premises of the realist literature and of symbols in a self-reflective poetic fictionalized on the structuring of imaginary universes

PAUL AUSTER: In the Country of Last Things og New York

En af de bybøger, jeg sætter pris på, er den amerikanske forfatter Paul Austers lille roman In the Country of Last Things fra 1987. Romanen står som nummer to i forfatterskabet efter det internationale gennembrud med romantrilogien The New York Trilogy. Den udkom også i 1987, men trilogiens første roman City of Glass udkom allerede i 1985 og de to næste, Ghosts og The Locked Room, forelå i 1986

La chambre de Pandore : féminité et hybridité de l'espace chez Gaston Leroux

Le motif de la « chambre close », considéré comme emblématique du roman policier, a été exploité par de nombreux écrivains depuis le XIXe siècle. Chez les pères fondateurs du genre, tels Edgar Allan Poe et Arthur Conan Doyle, il s’est d’abord incarné sous une forme simple, celle d’un mécanisme permettant la mise en scène d’un « défi à la raison » (Christiane Cadet, 2008), avant de se complexifier à la Belle Époque. Sous la plume de Gaston Leroux, la simplicité cède la place à l’hybridité alors que la « chambre close », en s’emplissant d’un étonnant parfum de femme, devient le lieu où se croisent le crime et la passion, le privé et le public, la raison et la superstition. Dans Le Mystère de la chambre jaune (1907) et Le Fantôme de l’Opéra (1910), le romancier articule ses intrigues autour d’espaces atypiques, destinés à bouleverser les codes du genre policier. Ce mémoire s’attache ainsi à la manière dont un roman populaire, malgré son recours à un motif largement exploité, peut déplacer et transgresser l’horizon d’attente auquel il est associé. Plutôt que d’être figée à la manière d’un cliché photographique, la « chambre close » évolue sans cesse dans les récits à l’étude. Influencée par le phénomène d’hybridité générique qui sous-tend les romans, elle se dote de nouvelles significations qui la singularisent par rapport à l’emploi qu’en ont fait les prédécesseurs. En s’intéressant, dans un premier temps, à la trajectoire empruntée par les corps féminins et à leur influence sur les décors et, dans un deuxième temps, à la manière dont l’espace canalise un certain imaginaire propre à la littérature du XIXe siècle, il s’agira de voir comment Leroux parvient à faire éclater les murs d’un lieu qui, jusqu’alors, était clos « comme un coffre-fort » (Gaston Leroux, 1925).The "locked room" concept, generally considered symbolic of detective fiction, has been used by many writers since the 19th century. Amongst the authors of the genre, it was integrated as a simple mechanism to generate a mental challenge for the reader (Thomas Narcejac, 1975). The concept became more complex with the advent of the Belle Époque. The "locked room", under Gaston Leroux’s influence, became the central place where crime and passion, public and private, reason and superstition meet, when filled with the perfume of a woman. In The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1907) and The Phantom of the Opera (1910), Gaston Leroux built his intrigues around atypical "locked rooms" with the intent of upending the codes of detective fiction. This research focuses on the elements through which a popular novel can break its commonly associated expectations, despite the use of a widely exploited pattern. Instead of being frozen in time, the "locked room" is always evolving ; influenced by the novels’ underlying generic hybridity, it acquires new meanings that distinguish it from its predecessors. By first focusing on the path of female bodies and their influence on the decor, and then on the way the "locked room" reuses components associated with literature from the 19th century, we will see how Leroux manages to break the walls of a place that has been considered as closed as a safe (Gaston Leroux, 1925)