Daniel's review of Shining at the Bottom of the Sea
Shining at the Bottom of the Sea by Stephen Marche
An interesting premise--this novel's trope is that it is an anthology of literature from the North Atlantic island of Sanjan. So immediately we are in a fantasy world, but one that is well structured and that runs parallel to our own. Marche is able to parody certain kinds of literature with such skill that a reader is made uncomfortable because such a parroting suggests a belittling of the actual.
Take for instance this sentence from the concluding chapter 'Criticism'--"Pre-Independence writers believed the capture (or liberation) of the covetongues in dialect to be an aesthetic alibi which they longed to displace with a linguistically purer, politically purer 'clean style.'" Later in the same portion postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha is quoted, making this mime nearly perfect. And this is funny. But it is not merely mockery because this illuminates the other writing making up the anthology. Marche has had to create literay personas and then act each one out appropriatel...more
Take for instance this sentence from the concluding chapter 'Criticism'--"Pre-Independence writers believed the capture (or liberation) of the covetongues in dialect to be an aesthetic alibi which they longed to displace with a linguistically purer, politically purer 'clean style.'" Later in the same portion postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha is quoted, making this mime nearly perfect. And this is funny. But it is not merely mockery because this illuminates the other writing making up the anthology. Marche has had to create literay personas and then act each one out appropriatel...more
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