Reviewer: Adam Dalton

MPhil/PhD student: Lucia

Supervisors: Adam Lively, Paul Cobley

Further Reviewer feedback notes (dated 7 July 2021), based on the student’s recently corrected, post-Registration Panel submission

[These notes build logically towards a proposed shape for the work: from identifying the research required, to the generation of a researched thesis statement, to creative exploration (via the creative writing) of the thesis statement, to qualitative evaluation of the creative writing. Therefore, please understand these notes in sequence as a set of recommendations.]

Currently, the main research question is ‘How can a unique literary voice be created from the merging of elements/techniques that typically belong to different genres[…]?’. As the questioning during the Reg Panel identified, that question needs to be pre-empted by a discussion of the question ‘Can a unique literary voice be created from the merging of elements/techniques that typically belong to different genres?’ For this particular Reviewer, the answer is ‘It can’t!’, and that would be the answer for many other academics who adhere to Post-structuralism and Deconstruction (and would cite Barthes’s ‘The Death of the Author’, as a starting place, if not quite Heidegger’s ‘under erasure’, and Kant’s ‘erasure of being’). Once the pre-emptive question has been described and discussed, then one of the following questions would need to be answered: ‘If so, how?’ or ‘If not, then what are the implications for a modern author’s construction of character, text, plot-progression and ‘voice’?’

Currently, the full version of the main research question is ‘How can a unique literary voice be created from the merging of elements/techniques that typically belong to different genres by mainly focusing on metafiction and magic realism?’ The term ‘unique’ (which can be read as ‘original’) is problematic as described above, yet also the question suggests that uniqueness can be achieved by merging non-unique/non-original elements of metafiction and magic realism. Yet there is no logic as to why mixing two genres can create uniqueness: after all, metafiction and magical realism have been mixed before (e.g. Nicola Barker’s I Am Sovereign), so it is not unique if Lucia chooses to do it.

It is unclear what is meant by a ‘literary voice’. Is it the author’s voice, or the character’s voice, or the style of the wider novel? The following statement suggests that the voice is the protagonist’s: ‘we can already appreciate the contrasting elements that went into creating Lulu as a literary voice’. Here, then, we are discussing what elements will make Lulu’s voice that of a distinct, ‘unique’, original identity. Yet, of course, Lulu is an artificial construction generated by or within the author’s text (with, arguably, the author as origin, rather than Lulu, but what then is the origin of the author?, and so on), and therefore not a genuine or unique identity.

The construction of identity (and Lulu) is key or central to the work. Lulu is not self-constructed (she is constructed by the author and/or the reader reading). Her identity is not her own. Her identity is ‘female’, however, and suffers in a similar way to which the female is defined, constructed and/or limited within patriarchy. An understanding and self-referencing awareness of how this aspect of identity is defined, defining, constructed, limited and limiting moves us towards the possibility of more metafictional and experimental techniques and considerations within the creative text, including around questions of control, norms, freedom and will. It is precisely for such reasons that the Reviewer recommended Lucia read and research more experimental women’s writing (specifically The Trick is to Keep Breathing (Galloway, 1984), in order to identify, quote and analyse a range of specific techniques.

A key defining aspect of metafiction is that it is ‘a form of fiction that emphasizes its own constructedness in a way that continually reminds readers to be aware that they are reading or viewing a fictional work’ (Waugh, 1984). Lucia should hold onto this sort of definition and then think about what implications it has in terms of writing techniques and the construction of ‘voice’, identity, what is ‘real’, authenticity, authorship and uniqueness. It would then be helpful if Lucia could name a range of writing techniques or motifs specific to metafiction, quote examples from texts written in the genre, and offer some analysis of those examples. To provide one example, Barker includes a chapter in I Am Sovereign in which the ‘author’ is in discussion with one of her characters and is looking to negotiate contractual rights over using and representing the character. The character refuses to grant ‘Barker’ full licence, meaning Barker’s artistic licence, expression and voice is compromised. This example is a thought-experiment that characterises key issues around the impossibility of negotiating or achieving fair, accurate, artistic and authentic representation of character.

In line with the points above, the understanding of ‘magical realism’ is similarly lacking: ‘I will mainly research on [sic] the elements that make Latin American magic realism particularly noticeable, as well as their influence in creating a literary voice.’ One of the main themes in the work of Marquez is the continuing failure of the individual to assert a distinct, original or individual identity. Continually, the individual is a construction of their past, mythology, and present society i.e. they are not self-possessed. They do not have even ‘a [singular] literary voice’; rather, they are part of a shared voice beyond their control. Similar to the above, the Reviewer recommends Lucia should name a range of writing techniques or motifs specific to magical realism, quote examples from texts written in the genre, and offer some analysis of those examples.

Finally, all of the research above will generate some sort of thesis statement about whether any sort of text-based voice can be created that will be consistently experienced and understood as distinct by a wider group of readers. Having generated that thesis statement (based on prior research), Lucia will then be in a place to produce the creative text that can then be qualitatively evaluated (Reader-response theory) by beta-readers. Gathering such data from beta-readers will provide the results of a qualitative study that will make this undertaking feel like a genuine piece of original research. Until more prior research has been undertaken, however, it is the advice of this Reviewer to slow down on the creative output for now (instead prioritising the research).

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