The Murky Waters of Australian Collective Consciousness
Abstract
Although many critics see Richard Flanagan‘s novel entitled Gould‘s Book of
Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish primarily in terms of its author‘s politics and participation in the History Wars debate, there has so far been scant discussion of this work in relation to the theories of the grotesque and carnivalesque, developed by Russian philosopher and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin. As such, the purpose of this paper is to examine Flanagan‘s destabilisation of established truths and hierarchical, hegemonic discourses in his novel by applying French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard‘s postmodern configurations of the sublime to these oft forgotten theories of Bakhtin. Accordingly, this paper also aims to contribute to the scholarship which examines the relationship between these concepts. Following notions of the sublime, the grotesque, and the carnivalesque, this paper underlines the importance of participatory processes and a dialogic relation between multiple differences in the forging of a new, collective and fair history for Australians that is yet to begin.
Keywords: Bakhtin, carnivalesque, grotesque, Lyotard, sublime.
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