Alternative Geographies for Alternative Stories. The Diagonal Space in Michael Chabron’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

Iperstoria

关键词: literature;    american literature;    michael chabon;   

DOI  :  10.13136/2281-4582/2018.i12.682

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The present paper discusses the construction of fictional spaces with particular focus on their relationship to history by demonstrating how in Michael Chabon’s alternate history The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, a re-configuration of geography corresponds to a re-interpretation of history. My argument is grounded in the postmodernist construction of literature as having an ontological dominant and I hold that the abovementioned cause-effect relationship between history and geography engenders in the novel a fictional “space-time,” diagonal to the actual world. The latter represents a third alternative to factuality and fictionality; therefore, it is a diagonal originating from the intersection between the two, a universe where history and geography, as well as factuality and counter-factuality mingle and collide. By resorting to the ubiquitous metaphor of the chess game, I present a reading of the novel as generative literary endeavor and of the narrative as selfsustained space-time, grounded in two main vectors of diagonality: language and history.

【 授权许可】

Unknown