Counternarrative Possibilities

Counternarrative Possibilities reads Cormac McCarthy's Westerns against the backdrop of two formative tropes in American mythology: virgin land (from the 1950s) and homeland (after '9/11' ). Looking at McCarthy's Westerns in the context of American Studies, James Dorson shows how his novels counter the national narratives underlying these tropes and reinvest them with new, potentially transformative meaning. Departing from prevailing accounts of McCarthy that place him in relation to his literary antecedents, Counternarrative Possibilities takes a forwardlooking approach that reads McCarthy's work as a key influence on millennial fiction. Weaving together disciplinary history with longstanding debates over the relationship between aesthetics and politics, this book is at once an exploration of the limits of ideology critique in the twenty-first century and an original reconsideration of McCarthy's work 'after postmodernism'.

»Dorson provides an eloquent encapsulation of scholarly approaches regarding the affirmation and subversion of romantic narratives in the novels. And throughout he offers wonderful connections to Herman Melville and James Joyce.« E. Hage, SUNY Cobleskill, Choice, 01.04.2017 »In its entirety, James Dorson's Counternarrative Possibilities develops two absorbing argumentative strands: An extremely informed and informative examination of the politics of criticism as well as the criticism of politics that have shaped American Studies since the second half of the twentieth century; and a well-argued re-examination of McCarthy's western novels in light of recent political and cultural developments in the United States.« Jan D. Kucharzewski, Amerikastudien/America Studies, 64.3 (2019)

Autorentext
James Dorson is an assistant professor of North American Studies at the John F. Kennedy Institute of Freie Universität Berlin.

Klappentext

Counternarrative Possibilities reads Cormac McCarthy's westerns against the backdrop of American mythology's two formative national tropes: virgin land (from the 1950s) and homeland (after 9/11). Looking at McCarthy's westerns in the context of American studies, James Dorson shows how his books counter the national narratives underlying these tropes and reinvest them with new, potentially transformative meaning. Departing from prevailing accounts of McCarthy that place him in relation to his literary antecedents, Counternarrative Possibilities takes a forward-looking approach that reads McCarthy's work as a key influence on millennial fiction. Weaving together disciplinary history with longstanding debates over the relationship between aesthetics and politics, this book is at once an exploration of the limits of ideology critique in the twenty-first century and a timely, original reconsideration of McCarthy's work after postmodernism.

Zusammenfassung
Counternarrative Possibilities reads Cormac McCarthy's Westerns against the backdrop of two formative tropes in American mythology: virgin land (from the 1950s) and homeland (after '9/11' ). Looking at McCarthy's Westerns in the context of American Studies, James Dorson shows how his novels counter the national narratives underlying these tropes and reinvest them with new, potentially transformative meaning. Departing from prevailing accounts of McCarthy that place him in relation to his literary antecedents, Counternarrative Possibilities takes a forwardlooking approach that reads McCarthy's work as a key influence on millennial fiction. Weaving together disciplinary history with longstanding debates over the relationship between aesthetics and politics, this book is at once an exploration of the limits of ideology critique in the twenty-first century and an original reconsideration of McCarthy's work 'after postmodernism'.

Leseprobe
Acknowledgements
This book is a result of the immersion into Cormac McCarthy's fictional worlds afforded me during my three years at the Graduate School of North American Studies at the Free University of Berlin. I would especially like to thank my dissertation supervisor, Ulla Haselstein, for her invaluable sup-port and encouragement while writing. Winfried Fluck and Heinz Ickstadt, who were also part of my supervisor team, shaped the book significantly by tempering my political and aesthetic idealism, while conversations with Donald Pease and Hayden White, as visiting scholars in Berlin, helped keep that idealism alive. Discussions with my fellow graduate students were always a source of inspiration. So were the discussions with students in the classes I have taught over the years at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies. I am grateful to Martyn Bone from Copenhagen University for his initial faith in my work that led me to pursue a path in research to begin with. In the past year, the professional support from my research assistant, Carolin Benack, has been a tremendous help. Both the German Research Foundation and the Ernst Reuter Society have been generous in their support for my work. During my research, I spent time perusing the Cormac McCarthy Papers in the Albert B. Alkek Library at Southwest Texas State University. I owe my gratitude to the helpful library staff there, as well as to those who helped make my stay at the University of Texas at Austin so rewarding, especially Susan S. Heinzelman and Don Graham. While my baby twins, Amy and Hannah, have not exactly helped me finish the manuscript, the spirit of the book is entirely theirs in the future generation they represent. Karin, the book would never have been possible without your loving patience and support. Most importantly, the book is shaped by growing up between two national cultures that made me critical of both, which is why I dedicate it to my Danish mother, Annelise, and my American father, Edward.
Preface
"All is telling. Do not doubt it."
-Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing (1995, 155)
This book is concerned mainly with two things. The first is how to unsettle the power of narrative. When a narrative determines our field of vision, the range of our knowledge, our beliefs and expectations, and even shapes our affective ties, how is it possible to detach oneself from it? How do we call attention to the narrative lenses through which we perceive the world? For several modern critical traditions, from Russian formalism and New Criti-cism to critical theory and poststructuralism, literature has played a key role in exposing the constructedness of our worlds. The novel in particular gives readers access to an infinite number of worlds that have been created in ways that resemble our own narrative constructions of reality, and thus possesses the unique power of calling those constructions into question. Yet novels are not frontal assaults on our precarious sense of reality. When directly faced with the fact that our perception of the world is just that, a perception, we tend to become defensive. Casting doubt on our narratives threatens the integrity of our worlds. But set apart as fiction, the power of novels is by definition more subtle, more circuitous than other forms of communication. This is both their weakness and their strength. As we usu-ally read novels for pleasure and not to have our beliefs shattered, novels, when we least expect it, may insinuate that something is wrong, that the world is not quite as we thought, that there are rifts in its otherwise seam-less surface that cannot be accounted for. Once touched by this doubt, the ground beneath us becomes shaky, the givenness of the world less given.
The second concern of this book is what happens next? How does one move from disorientation to reorientation? How are we ever to inhabit another world after our faith in the first has been shaken? Literature may be capable of inspiring a "negative capability," John Keats's memorable phrase for "when man is capable of be…