4 research outputs found
Of Structural Denial: A Narratological Study of the Structural Disintegration of the Novel Form
If an opening to the argument of this dissertation is of imperative necessity, one might tentatively
begin with Herbert Quain, born in Roscommon, Ireland, author of the novels The God of the
Labyrinth (1933) and April March (1936), the short-story collection Statements (1939), and the play
The Secret Mirror (undated). To a certain extent, this idiosyncratic Irish author, who hailed from the
ancient province of Connacht, may be regarded as a forerunner of the type of novels which will be
considered in this dissertation. Quain was, after all, the unconscious creator of one of the first
structurally disintegrated novels in the history of western literature, April March. His first novel, The God
of the Labyrinth, also exhibits elements which are characteristic of structurally disintegrated fiction, for it
provides the reader with two possible solutions to a mysterious crime. As a matter of fact, one
might suggest that Quain’s debut novel offers the reader the possibility to ignore the solution to
the crime and carry on living his or her readerly life, turning a blind eye to the novel itself. It may
hence be argued that Quain’s first novel is in fact a compound of three different novels.
It is self-evident that the structure of Quain’s oeuvre is of an experimental nature,
combining geometrical precision with authorial innovation, and one finds in it a higher
consideration for formal defiance than for the text itself. In other words, the means of expression
are the concern of the author and not, interestingly, the textual content. April March, for example,
is a novel which regresses back into itself, its first chapter focussing on an evening which is
preceded by three possible evenings which, in turn, are each preceded by three other, dissimilar,
possible evenings. It is a novel of backward-movement, and it is due to this process of branching
regression that April March contains within itself at least nine possible novels. Structure, therefore,
paradoxically controls the text, for it allows the text to expand or contract under its formal
limitations. In other words, the formal aspects of the novel, usually associated with the restrictive
device of a superior design, contribute to a liberation of the novel’s discourse. It is paradoxical only
in the sense that the idea of structure necessarily entails the fixation of a narrative skeleton that
determines how plot and discourse interact, something which Quain flouts for the purposes of
innovation. In this sense, April March’s convoluted structure allows for multiple readings and
interpretations of the same text, consciously germinating narratives within itself, producing
different texts from a single, unique source. Thus, text and means of expression are bonded by a
structural design that, rather than limiting, liberates the text of the novel