The Production of Lateness. Rahel Rivera Godoy-Benesch
disregarding the author of a text may be a productive practice in literary criticism; yet, within ageing studies, silencing the ageing artist is ethically problematic and it runs counter to the field’s anti-ageist agenda. Overcoming this dilemmadilemma is one of the core difficulties in the intersection of literary criticism and ageing studies. Over the last two decades (and as a somewhat delayed result of the cultural turn in the social sciences), a new field of ageing studies, called cultural gerontologycultural gerontology, has emerged (Twigg and Martin, “The Field” 1), of which literary gerontologyliterary gerontology is a branch (Falcus 54–56). Social gerontology has recently experienced considerable growth and popularity, “[c]hang[ing] the ways in which we study later years, challenging old stereotypesstereotype and bringing new theories, new methodologies, and new forms of political and intellectual engagement to bear” (Twigg and Martin, “The Field” 1). Yet, its interdisciplinary approach has also led to methodological difficulties. Moreover, the danger looms large that the humanities’ focus on discourse may result in the “loss of a sense of the social and underlying reality” (6). These problems are particularly visible in literary gerontology. On the one hand, there are more sociologically oriented studies, which equate the content of a literary work with social reality and thus pay little attention to issues of textualitytextuality, consequently not living up to the methodological standard of literary criticism. On the other hand, a strictly literary approach with an exclusive focus on textuality cannot fully endorse ageing studies’ social and political agenda. The realm of art seems too far removed from reality. This conflict cannot be completely solved. Yet, what Sarah FalcusFalcus, Sarah views as an asset of literature itself could also be considered a strength of literary gerontology: “It is the ability to accommodate and even thrive on contradictioncontradiction, incompleteness and possibility” (53). In this sense, it is precisely the field’s most contradictory areas, such as methodologically complex questions of authorship and authorial agencyagency, that may turn out to be particularly fruitful for the field of ageing studies.
One of the aims of the present study is therefore to make a contribution to literary gerontologyliterary gerontology in providing a methodologically viable approach to late literary works: one that should be able to encompass the political agenda of ageing studies, on the one hand, and respect the tenets of text-based literary criticism, on the other. Nonetheless, the risks involved in embracing “the openly political drive” of literary gerontology (Falcus 54) should not be underestimated. Critics must be careful not to blatantly subordinate their interpretation of literary texts to their ideological aims. An ideological orientation is justified, however, if its design is geared towards avoiding an ageist methodologyageism. Falcus notes in agreement with Helen SmallSmall, Helen:
Despite the wealth of literary texts that explore and present ageing across the life course, […] literary critics very rarely take ageing as a focus of their work: “Old age in literature is rarely if ever only about itself – but as far as criticism has been concerned, it has oddly rarely been about itself at all.” (Small 6, qtd. in Falcus 53)
Hence, the most noticeable bias in literary criticism has been the field’s neglect of old age as a category. Late-style narrativeslate-style narrative consistently emphasize elderly artists’ struggles to make their art compatible with their advanced age; if critics ignore the theme of old age in these narratives, they misrepresent the literary text. Likewise, in narratives that draw attention to their producer’s age, the critical approach should not disregard the author’s status as an elderly artist – even less so because creativitycreativity studies have mainly been concerned with youthyouth (Smiles 16–17) and thus created an additional age bias. Hence, adopting an anti-ageist agendaageism in literary studies means critically examining the methods of textual analysistextual analysis as well as the cultural paradigms and age stereotypesstereotype on which these are based. In order to resist such stereotyping, critics should attempt to discover what the ageing artists themselves express through and about their creative processes. “Art is seduction, not rape,” SontagSontag, Susan states, yet “art cannot seduce without the complicity of the experiencing subject” (“On Style” 27). Hence, even with an anti-ageist agenda, the literary work, the object of study, should be at the center of the investigation.
1.3 Late-Style Narrativeslate-style narrative in Context
Methodology begins with the selection of the literary texts to be analyzed. The three late works chosen for this study, John Barth’sBarth, John collection The Development, Karen Blixen’sBlixen, Karen short story “Echoes,” and Joan Didion’sDidion, Joan autobiographical novel Blue Nights, are works whose formal structures reflect the ways in which the late-style debate has shaped late art and cultural images of ageing artists alike. The choice of these three works is not representative of the bulk of late contemporary literature; nor are the narratives fully representative of their individual authors’ late phaseslate phase. Every text an author writes may present a different artist-persona, and the aim of this study is not to provide a holistic approach. Rather, the three works are suitable for this study because they exemplify some key aspects of the late-style debate and their effects. John Barth, as a theoretical and parodist writer, has the ability to make existing formal structures visible, highlighting the way in which the medium itself determines the late work. Karen Blixen is an unconventional writer who transcends boundaries of nation, language, and literary period. Her deeply personal and symbolic writing foregrounds the pervasive social paradigmssocial discourse that shape late art, especially with regard to questions of gendergender. Joan Didion, finally, is the one who best exemplifies the contact between artists and the public. Moreover, not only is she a strong stylist who has always explicitly commented on her stylistic choices, but she arguably also records universal experienceshuman experience in her writing. This group of texts thus also exemplifies the dilemmadilemma each late-style critic has to face and to which there is no definitive solution: whether or not to close the gap between the individual and the universal – that is, whether to extend the insights into a specific text to late-life creativity in general.
The core thesis proposed here is a general one: it argues that the theoretical focus on late style in art historyart history, musicologymusic, and philosophyphilosophy around the middle of the twentieth century has had a decisive impact on elderly authors’ artistic production, and that these authors, in an act of dissidence, now ‘write back’ to the theoretical authority that has tried to define them. Using Alan SinfieldSinfield, Alan’s term, one can call such dissident works “faultline stories,” narratives which “address the awkward, unresolved issues” and “negotiate the faultlines that distress the prevailing conditions of plausibility” (47). According to Sinfield, these narratives call for a politicalpolitical discourse criticism that examines their social parameters, and, more specifically, for textual analysistextual analysis:
The reason why textual analysis can so readily demonstrate dissidence being incorporated is that dissidence operates, necessarily, with reference to dominant structures. It has to invoke those structures to oppose them, and therefore can always, ipso facto, be discovered reinscribing that which it proposes to critique. (47)
In a similar way, late-style narrativeslate-style narrative, by simultaneously integrating and opposing the theoretical discourses of latenesslateness, step up against their arbiters and offer their own view of lateness. The metafictional form of the narratives, moreover, provides both a theory and an enactment of late style. Hence, the selected texts make a political statement, suggesting that they are self-sufficient and thus not dependent on late-style theory. The gesture within the work is therefore primarily one of literary and textual empowerment.
Empowermentempowerment is a strategy that aims at independence and self-determination in a situation dominated by stronger actors, and these actors, i.e. their discourses, will be examined in Chapters 2 and 6, whereas Chapters 3, 4, and 5 are dedicated to the analysis of the selected literary works. As Kenneth McLaughlin writes in Empowerment: A Critique, it was within the various American liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s that “the term empowerment emerge[d] as an adjunct to that of power,” denoting an attitude of “question[ing] prevailing social norms and develop[ing] new forms of consciousness”