CHAPTER TWO

HISTORIOGRAPHIC METAFICTION'

The relationship between literature and historiography

is an ancient one. The urge to record events is a

continuous human practice. An investigation into the

relationship between historiography and literature by

Gossman(1990) shows the constant cross-references between

literary genres and history. The Greek and Roman writers who

wrote history were generally concerned with rhetoric - the

technique and presentation of history. Quintillian, Cicero,

Tacitus, Polybius, Plutarch and Lucian are some of the

writers of the times. Historiography during the Renaissance

conformed to the ancients view of history as an art of

presentation rather than scientific inquiry. Historiography

was considered to be a part of literature and its problems

were largely linguistic. From the final phase of

neoclassicism, however, literature began to be identified

with poetry and figurative writing. With the Romantics,

literature began to be viewed as a mission and the poet as a

prophet. Literature became a self-validating vocation,

concerning itself more with poetics than rhetoric(Gossman

229). Questions of epistemology began to be raised in

history, as it detached itself from rhetoric, and set up as

its ideal the impartial representation of the real.

Rhetoric began to be viewed as antithetical to objectivity"

47
and to historical truth. During the nineteenth century the

separation of history and literature was formalized by the

universities. Gossman draws a correspondence between

history's efforts in the nineteenth century to bring it

close to the most privileged mode of knowledge - empirical

science, and the dominance of realism in the practice and

criticism of literature. In the twentieth century the

repudiation of realism, the rejection of subject or

character as a unified and unifying entity, and the

perception of time as "multiform" have raised doubts

regarding history as a scientific activity. Notions of

history as neutral and objective with definite borderlines

between the constituents are questioned. The

epistemological divisions are now being challenged. The

notion of reality as fixed and historys privilege over

representation of reality are being questioned.

There is no consensus yet on the plurality of

representations of reality. Tuchmans Practising

Historv(19811 is a detailed examination of the differences

between writing history and writing fiction. The constraint

that a historian works with is that of evidence(30). The

novelists advantage is invention(39). Tuchmans attempt to

demarcate the borders between history and literature is

complicated by the ambiguities of the use of narrative in

the two. In a study of narrative form in history and

fiction, Leo Braudy(1970) explores the interrelations of

48
novels and narrative histories in the eighteenth century

particularly the works of David Hume, Edward Gibbon and

Henry Fielding. Braudy suggests that "Gibbon wrote better

history than Hume because he had read the novels of

Fielding..."(5). The similarities of their approach to the

problem of writing history suggests to Braudy the artificial

polarities that literary and historical criticism have made

for literature and history. Fielding questions past

historiography which he equates with public history and

asserts the value of private history as a corrective to

public history. This links Fielding to Rushdie of the

twentieth century who believes that official history must be

constantly questioned. Braudy perceives in Joseph Andrews.

Fieldings criticism of a view of actuality built on factual

detail alone. Gibbon too recognized that facts have no

intrinsic order, that causal explanations are imposition of

a certain kind of relationship between facts and that facts

have many possible orders. Historical truth is a balance

of probabilities rather than an attempt to establish

certainty..."(221) . Braudys study demonstrates how history

and literature influenced each other in terms of how they

were written. Hume drew upon literary methods to write a

coherent history which denies chance an operative role.

Fieldings novels, according to Braudy, attack and expose

the "false orders of public history". Through his novels

Fielding attempted to present the variety of the world

49
rather than reduce it to any category. Braudy stresses the

historiographical origins of Fieldings narrative patterns

which in turn influenced Gibbons historical writings.

Rhetoric was not the only aspect of literature which was

used by history. History and literature exerted a mutual

influence in their narrative processes and discursive

practices. The overlap of history and literature can be

evidenced in intellectual history or the history of ideas.

John F. Tinkler(1987) demonstrates the use of "literary"

technique in Francis Bacons History of the Reign of King

Henry VII and suggests that historical studies in rhetoric

would correspond to a history of ideas since rhetoric shaped

world views of humanists during the Renaissance. While White

emphasized modes of poetic discourse, Tinkler uses rhetoric

to understand the narrative process of writing history.

History was perceived to be history-as-event and considered

prior and superior to literature. W.K. Wimsatt Jr. (1970)

identifies four aspects of. the role of history in

criticism: history as antecedent or cause of literature;

history as lexicography; literature and the history of

ideas, and; history as text of literary works. History thus

affects not only the writing of literature and the

evaluation of literary works but significantly influences

literary history.

Since the end of the nineteenth century when history

began to be projected as a science, historians have sought

50
to downplay the role of the "literary

history of historiography.

The preoccupation with historiography in the twentieth

century has been referred to as the revival of narrative or

the 'return of literature. Ferdinand de Saussures argument

that language constitutes reality, not merely reflecting or

expressing it, destabilized simple equations between

language and reality. After Saussure, "meaning became a

function of the linguistic system"(David Harlan 1989).

Saussure shows that language does not merely reflect or

express; emotion, thought, experience and the observable

concrete world have to be encoded in a linguistic system.

The relationship between the signifier (the phonetic or

orthographic representation) and the signified (the concept

signified) is given by convention and may change over a

period of time. Meaning assigned to a linguistic sign is

thus arbitrary. Just as the gap in history between "the past

as it was" and the evidence of the past is permanent,

meaning in language is assumed, not inherent in the

relationship between the word and its signified. Though the

arbitrary nature of signs was acknowledged the

structuralists emphasized the 'system which regulated

signs. The late 1960s saw the rise of poststructuralism

which by emphasizing the arbitrariness of signs dislodged

the stable, closed systems of signification of the

structuralists. Poststructuralism questioned the possibility

51
of fixed meanings when there were no fixed bonds between

signifiers and signified and if meaning was relative to

other signifiers. Derrida(1981) used the term "differance"

to imply the infinite deferment and absence of complete

meaning. The meaning of a sign is made distinct by its

difference from other signs. These differences may not be

immediately apparent so that complete understanding is

deferred. So meaning is being continually unfolded. The

'a' in 'differance marks the movement of this unfolding.

This implies that the relationship between language and its

referent is dynamic. Meaning posited in the present is

incomplete, subject to change when new differences appear.

Bruner(1991) dates 1981 as the year of the "paradigm

shift" when literary theorists and historiographers compared

notes on narrative and representation of reality. 1981 was

the year in which W.J.T. Mitchell edited a collection of

essays that had appeared in Critics 7 Inquiry in 1980,

entitled On Narrative. Since the essays first appeared in

1980 perhaps the year of the paradigm shift" is

appropriately 1980. Among the essays which appeared in

Critical Inquiry in 1980 were Hayden Whites "The Value of

Narrativity in the Representation of Reality", Frank

Kermodes "Secrets and Narrative Sequence", Paul Ricoeurs

"Narrative Time", Robert Scholess "Language, Narrative, and

Anti-Narrative and Barbara Herrnstein Smith's "Narrative

Versions, Narrative Theories". The significance of these

52
essays lies in their insights into the ways by which

narrative constitutes and at the same time is constituted by

reality. White(1980) examines the annals, the chronicle and

history proper - the three kinds of historical

representation identified in the official wisdom of the

modern historiographical representation". The first two are

perceived to be imperfect" histories by historians since

their central concern is chronology which lacks an

organizing principle of discourse. They terminate abruptly,

not arriving at any conclusion. The third category of

representation is more proper history because it organizes

real events to give it a coherence and a closure. White

sees in the process by which history proper is written, the

impulse to moralize. Narrativization of real events"

necessitates a process of selection and sequence which

belies the discrete and discontinuous occurrence of events.

The coherence, integrity and completion of narrative history

is given by a historian, not by actual events. White reveals

the paradox of historical representation. Narrativity

enjoins the arrangement of events around a certain

organizing principle. History proper privileges narrativity

that historians can no more equate "the true" with "the

real in their representation of reality. White has argued

that the desired ending of historical narrative is a

function of the moralizing principle. He finds that the

story is form inseparable from moral judgement. Louis 0.

53
Mink(1981) contests Whites position on morality asserting

that narrative is a cognitive instrument, and

narrativization is primary not derived from any moralizing

impulse. White(1981) points out that Minks position is

akin to those who claim history is a science. White seems

to convincingly close the debate when he observes that

modern philosophers of history have had to admit that

historical knowledge belongs to the realm of understanding

than that of reason. Unlike pure sciences history

constitutes and is constituted by narrative. Taking the

example of the story of Cinderella, Smith(1980) demonstrates

how 345 'versions of the story are both retellings of other

narratives as well as accounts from a particular or partial

perspective(215). The events of history are constantly

being told and retold, interpreted and re-interpreted by

different people at different times. In his essay

Scholes(1980) accepts that the writer of fiction does not

"affirm" the prior existence of his events, implying that a

historian has to. This acceptance is contradictory. He

makes the distinction on the basis of the mimetic intentions

of the two disciplines. But in his discussion on language he

does elaborate on the referential function of language used

in literature and that used in history. His statement that

events in fiction "have no prior temporal existence, even

though they are presented as if they did" may not hold when

applied to texts termed by Hutcheon as 'historiographic

54
metafiction. Scholes acceptance of the boundaries between

historical and literary writing is probably part of his

scepticism of the "deconstructive enterprise" to extirpate

"narrative structuration". The relationship between

historical writing and literary writing is further

complicated by their use of ordinary language. In

Stanfords words history is "single-layered"(1986 149). It

does not use any kind of technical jargon like pure sciences

do.

Kermodef1980) demonstrates the conflict between the

illusion of narrative sequence" and "secrets" by a

detailed examination of Joseph Conrads Under Western Eyes.

By "secrets Kermode means interpretations that underlie a

text; it may be with reference to the story itself or any

other discourse. Ricoeurs essay focuses on narrative time.

He expounds different levels of temporality using the plot

to locate his discourse. Ricoeur does not distinguish the

plot of a literary work from that of history.

Whites "tropical" method(1973) and Ankersmits

'narrative logic(1983) prove plausible alternative

approaches to be adopted for the study. White analyses the

main forms of historical consciousness in the nineteenth

century using Burkes "master tropes" - Metaphor,

Metonymy, Synechdoche and Irony - as the basic types of

linguistic prefiguration. White uses a linguistic model to

55
classify the "deep structural- forms of the historical
*

i magination( 1 973 31 ). The historian approaches the

historical field like the linguist does a new language. The

historians conceptualization of his material characterizes

the kinds of relationships the objects within his material

have. Metaphor is representational, metonymy is reductionist,

synecdoche is integrative and irony is negational and each

of these equations illumines discourse. Irony was the

dominant trope in the last decades of the nineteenth

century. Against the ironic the other three appear naive

to White. While the first three tropes are used when there

is a belief in languages capacity to grasp the nature of

things in figurative terms, in irony catachresis and aporia

signal the authors disbelief in the truth of his or her own

statements. The underlying scepticism and relativism in the

use of Irony appear to be relevant to the analysis of the

four texts in hand. However it lacks the narratological

aspect by which the intersections between literature and

history is made manifest as in Hutcheons historiographic

metafiction.

Rejecting phenomenologistic and psychologistic

approaches to historiography, Ankersmits Narrative

Lonicf1983) uses narrativist philosophy and looks at

historical knowledge as an arrangement of what he terms

'narrative substances. Ankersmit uses the term 'narratio

for historiographical narrative and 'narrative

56
substance(Ns) for a collection of statements that deal with

facts in a narration. Narrative substances propose some

"thesis on the past" which indicate the historiographical

value of a narratio. The significance of narrative

substance lies in its 'historist implications. While

historicism refers to speculative philosophies of history as

developed for instance by Hegel or Marx, 'historism

indicate the ideas on the writing of history. According to

Ankersmit, 90% of all living historians cannot write history

without being historists. Ankersmi t acknowledges problems in

differentiating between the narratio and the historical

novels. The use of criterion like truth value does not

serve to conclusively distinguish the two kinds of writing

because interpretation and "point of view" are woven into

both the novel and historiography. The three fundamental

tenets of his approach are that narratios cannot be taken

for the past; that a narratio expresses an interpretation of

the past and this interpretation is embodied in the

narrative substance; and that metaphorical statements and

narratios are similar in their definition of a 'point of

view from which they view reality. The continuum on which

Ankersmit plots the range of narrative from the historical

novel to the narratio is flexible. The four texts in this

study cannot be considered as historical novels, and thus

Ankersmits framework proves inadequate. While they depart

from positivistic models of historical analysis, they fail

to account for the use of history" in the new novel.

57
 Whites tropology and Ankersmits 'narrative logic

attempt to decode the 'entextualization of reality and

discern the historical interpretation woven within. The

realization that narrative organization also means selection

of usable facts of history, has put the truth-claim of

history in doubt. The privileged position of the historical

novel in literature because of its true referentiality is

questioned by re-thinking on the nature of historical truth.

Just as twentieth century scepticism has revealed that

historical deductions are conjectural and their meanings

speculative, in literature it has questioned the privileging

of originality, the literary canon and the purity of form

and genre. Ultimately it has shown that the categorization

of knowledge and narrative has been a matter of cultural

perception. In this context 'historiographic metafiction is

a site on which two problematized categories

historiography and novels that use history - are situated.

Connectivity appears at the foreground in current

theories on the relationship between literature and history.

Narrative is the link between the two disciplines and its

common features challenge attempts at segregation of the

two. Historiographic metafiction provides an appropriate

framework for analysis of the four texts in this thesis as

it positions the relationship between literature and history

as symbiotic rather than conflictual.

58
 In the context of the late twentieth century

'deconstruction of historys "objective" truth, historio

graphy and the so-called historical novel become sites of

intense discursive activity. Whites efforts to describe

the 'narrativization of real events in literary tropes,

Minks argument that narrativization is not the product of

individual cognition and *Oakeshotts perception that the

coherence of the historians narrative alone defines

historical truth are prominent. For White(1980)

historiography is an "especially good ground on which to

consider the nature of narration and narrativity because

here human desire for the imaginary, the possible, must

contest with the imperatives of the real, the actual"(8).

Ten years later, Ankersmit finds that historiography "truly

is the postmodernist discipline par excellence", in which we

are left with representations mirroring an ever absent past

reality(1990 294). And it is within the framework of the

problematizing poetics of postmodernism that Hutcheon

defines what she calls historiographic metafiction.

Hutcheon(1988) chose fiction partly because of the

preference in this epoch for the genre and partly because it

verbally articulates and problematizes the assumptions of

our dominant culture(227).

The authors of these books share the experience of

displacement from their country of origin - India. Except

Rushdie, the authors live in the United States of America;

59
Rushdie lives in England. As writers all four seem acutely

aware of the contradictions in their situation both as

writers and as persons who do not belong to any particular

identity-slot. These texts draw information from several

sources. They appear to adopt an across discourses approach

in which the crossing of borders is based on access and

projected in the positioning of narrative. The authors

awareness makes the crossing of boundaries deliberate, not

effected by chance. In the context one finds it more

probable that the 'positioning of the texts that source

from literature and history may be based on their awareness

of the various discourses in literature and history. That

historiographic metafiction is sought to be located in a

postmodernism that apparently has no boundaries is

contingent. The four writers do not claim to be

postmodernists but their writings closely correspond to

Hutcheons historiographic metafiction.

MC was first published in 1981. It is an autobiography

of Saleem Sinai, born at the same time that India won

Independence from its British colonists. Though the book

and Saleems narration begin with his birth, Saleem does

not arrive at the time of his birth until the end of Book

One, after more than a hundred pages. He goes back in time

to the times of his grandfather Aadam Aziz, before coming to

his birth. Then, he discloses that he is not the biological

t

grandson of Aadam Aziz. He is the bastard son of an English

60
man and his Indian maid. He was not born a Muslim and he

wasnt Saleem Sinai. He should have been Shiva, who was the

'real' Saleem Sinai. Saleem narrates his past from memory

and he is motivated by the need to preserve his

extraordinary story and by the weight of historical

consciousness. The speed with which he recollects and

narrates his story is governed by his fear of impending

death which could cut his story short. For each year of his

life, Saleem has a chapter and a pickle jar. Inspite of his

sense of doom, in addition to thirty jars he has one empty

jar which stands for the future that is yet to happen.

Saleems autobiography is the story of his life "handcuffed

to history", written and at the same time narrated to Padma,

Saleems sole audience, critic and companion. Padma plays

the role of a priest during Confession, listening to

Saleems tale of guilt but unlike a priest she has no

authority to pardon. Saleems life is marked by its

intersections with events from national history. He claims

responsibility for the occurrence of certain national

9
events

and marks certain other events for the drastic impact they

had on his life. MC may be seen as Saleems story and an

alternative history of India. Its self-ref1exivity and

metafictional aspects explicitly signals the texts

participation in discourses on the lines drawn between

history and literature, between fiction and non-fiction and

between different forms and genres of writing.

61
 TGIN is autobiographical but it is more V.V.s version

of the history of India than the story of his life. It is

the story of a man who claims to have directed the course of

history in his lifetime. At eighty-eight, Ved Vyas, V.V. in

short, dictates his memoirs to Ganapathi. Tharoor uses the

frame of the Mahabharata to plot the story of V.V. and his

country, India. Just as Ved Vyas dictates the Mahabharata

to Ganesh in the Mahabharata. TGINs Ved Vyas dictates TGIN.

to Ganapathi in TGIN. The events of the Mahabharata are

constantly reworked to accommodate modern Indian history.

In the Mahabharata Bhishma is a heroic figure who gives up

his rightful inheritance for his fathers happiness. Giving

up the right to rule may be seen as an act of supreme

sacrifice for a Kshatriya prince. When Bhishma takes a vow

to lead a life of celibacy and to never stake a claim to the

throne of Hastinapur, he literally shakes the world with its

force. Before he took the vow Bhishma was called Ganga

Datta. In TGIN. Ganga Datta is referred to as Ganga D. and

Gangaji; Ganga travels in third-class train carriages, leads

a non-violent army of satyagrahis, abandons his robes for a

loincloth, has a balding pate and oval glasses and preaches

the importance of enemas. These clues connect Ganga D.

with Gandhi ji, the 'Father of the Nation. Ganga is not

presented with the sense of reverence which is usually

evoked by the figures of Bhishma in the Mahabharata and

Gandhi in Indian historiography. Songs like the one below

demythify the halo of sainthood which has circled Gandhi.

62
 Old Gangaji too

is a good Hindu

for to violate a cow

would negate his vow".

(TGIN 26)

The jocularity sets the tone of irreverence that

pervades the book. And in the process, TGIN provokes a re

visioning of the Mahabharata and reverses the pre-dominantly

deferential approach to the events and personages of the

struggle for Independence. The Mahabharata may be seen to

occupy a space between myth and history. The text of this

epic has undergone many transformations; different versions

of its stories exist and it has been rendered in verse and

prose. The original which may have been in Sanskrit has

been translated into different languages and as the worlds

longest epic poem it has long been the cynosure of various

discourses. But just as secular interpretations of the

Bible has met with concerted resistance, attempts to

scrutinize the Mahabharata outside religion have faced

opposition. The hermeneutical tradition of the Mahabharata

has the additional complication of being part of colonial

history and discourse. The use and subversion of the

Mahabharata and the Indian historiographical tradition in

TGIN produces alternative interpretations and insights into

the processes of discourse.

63
 The predominant concern in IAAL may be seen to be

historical methodology, the processes by which events become

part of history and historiography. The protagonist of

IAAL. Amitab, is a research scholar on a mission for

evidence on Bomma, a slave who lived in twelfth century

India. As a biographer Amitab can merely arrive at a general

outline of the slaves life. Amitab does not use modern

technology to conduct his research, making it a personal

journey of discovery. The slaves master was an Egyptian

who settled in Mangalore in India. Ami tabs investigations

regarding the slave do not appear to be the crux of his

doctoral research in I AAL. He seems to have come upon the

slave of the manuscript numbered MS H.6, incidentally.

Amitab describes the course of his entire investigation,

looking back from his narrative present, 1990. On his first

visit in 1980 he stayed in Lataifa in Egypt. It is the

title of the second part of the book after the Prologue.

The section entitled 'Nashawy is mainly concerned with

Ami tabs second journey to Egypt in 1988. This section also

reviews the incidents of 1980 from his location not only in

1 988 but also 1 990, the time of the next section

'Mangalore*. The last but one section called 'Going Back

may be seen to refer to Ben Yijus return to Aden and Amitab

"looking back" from 1990 at his Egyptian sojourns. His

entire exploration is an exercise in "going back". In 1990

he not only looks back at his stay in Egypt in 1980 and

64
1988, he also reconstructs his perceptions in 1980 and 1988.

The opening line of the section 'Going Back demonstrates

this: "Looking back, it seems to me now that until I

returned in 1988.(291) . There is constant oscillation

between "now" and "then", and also proleptic movements

between "now" and future time. In the course of his

'historical journey, Ami tab uncovers the politics

underlying historiography and through his careful use of

modals of suggestion and probability, he underscores the

undecided nature of historical knowledge. Looking back at

the ways in which he had looked back in the past, Ami tab is

constantly revising and re-evaluating what he thought he

knew. Ami tabs journey through time and space touches many

areas of human knowledge - history, historiography,

anthropology, philology, religion, sociology and the

politics of their discourses. In the process of the

research conducted at the interface between two

civilizations - Egyptian and Indian - he reveals the

overlapping of different systems of knowledge and

antediluvian borderlines. A distinction has been made in

this thesis between Ami tab, the narrator of IAAL and Amitav.

the author of IAAL. An unambiguous separation between the

two cannot be made; the reader knows that the narrator is

Ami tab because he is called by that name; but the 'Notes

suggest authorial intrusion because it refers primarily to

Amitav Ghoshs research project, the libraries and

65
collections from which he gathered relevant documents and

his acknowledgement of contributions made by other scholars

and friends. The ambiguity of identity would be lost if

either one name is chosen to indicate both.

The initials of the researcher Beigh Masters in THOTW

match those of the author of the book, Bharati Mukherjee.

But to equate the two as suggested by Sat tar(1994) would rob

the book of being one of possibilities. It would be an

attempt to co-opt reality into a totalitarian system in

which boundaries are transparent and clear-cut. The

protagonist of THOTW calls herself an "asset-hunter", a

person who locates and deals with antiquarian objects for

collectors. Beigh Masters is a late twentieth century

'avatar of the traditional historical researcher. Her

interest in history is not solely intellectual or

scholastic. She is involved in the tracing of historical

objects for a consideration. In THOTW Masters searches for

the Emperors Tear, the diamond that rests on top of a gold

globe cupped by two hands, which belonged to Aurangzebe,

also called Alamgir. Alamgir meant 'Conqueror of the

World. The Emperors Tear and its gold globe setting

symbolized Aurangzebes power as 'The Holder of the World.

Masterss search for the diamond uncovers the hidden

conduits of antiquarian trade in the twentieth century. It

also connects her to her ancestral history. She discovers

that Hannah Easton, the American woman who is called the

66
Salem Bibi in Mughal paintings, is related to her. Hannah

Easton is also a route which may help her trace the diamond.

In a miniature painting called The Apocalypse which Masters

calls The Unravishd Bride, Salem Bibi is depicted holding

aloft the diamond. In order to retrieve the Emperor's Tear

Masters has to "deconstruct the barriers of time and

geography" and unravel the "tangled lines of India and New

England"(11). Just as Ami tab follows the slave in IAAL.

Masters traces the life of Hannah in THQTW. Like Saleem in

MC and V.V. in TGIN. Masters has an interlocutor in THQTW -

Venn Iyer. Venn opens another route for asset research -

virtual reality. Dehumanization of knowledge has acquired

new meanings with the advent of technology-aided research.

In its earlier usage it meant that products of human

discourse were divested of human qualities, making them

impersonal. Objectivity greatly valued in the historical

process was sought to be achieved by adhering strictly to

historical evidence and by eschewing the use of rhetoric and

other literary techniques in historical discourse.

Cybernetics has added a new dimension to dehumanization of

human knowledge by taking over the historical process of

research, discovery and dissemination. In THQTW Venn Iyer

is an immigrant Indian who works in a computer laboratory

and helps Masters locate the Emperors Tear. For Venn

research does not mean the same thing that it does for

Masters. Choosing a day in the past, Venn feeds the

67
computer every piece of information about it. This mass of

information forms the base from which a time-space continuum

is created. Any person can then enter the programme and 'go

through' the particular day. Here, dehumanization is an

apparent elimination of human intervention in the process of

discourse formation. By following Hannahs life through her

Memoirs and other items of evidence, Masters seems to reject

the dehumanization entailed by the use of technology.

Unlike Ami tab in IAAL Masterss research is undertaken at

the interface between the scholastic and the

entrepreneurial. Using a white womans life as a point of

entry into the subcontinent is a novel technique to be used

by an Indian English novelist. It is a strategy to blur

distinctions between author and narrator and insider and

outsider.

While critical articles and reviews on the four texts

under scrutiny are available, one cannot but agree with John

Oliver Perrys characterization of Indian critical practice

as one of "absent authority"(1992). Before listing the

salient features of historiographic metafiction the term

postmodernism needs to be redefined. In Part I of her book

Hutcheon expounds the postmodern and its role in

problematizing history. In Part II Hutcheon examines

historiographic metafiction and the ways in which it

problematizes history and literature.

68
Postmodernism

In Hutcheons conceptual framework postmodernism is

"fundamentally contradictory, resolutely historical, and

inescapably political"(4). Postmodernism cannot be a

theory in the conventional sense of the word because,

according to Hutcheon, its position on any binary

oppositional terms is: "it is both and neither"(18, 46).

Hutcheon writes: ...I think it is wrong to see

postmodernism as defined in any way by an "either/or"

structure"(46). This is in keeping with the political

"double-talk" of postmodernism as Hutcheon sees it. The

paradox of the postmodern lies in its process of subversion

in which that which is sought to be subverted is first

installed and then that grounding process and the grounds

themselves critically questioned(92). The scepticism of

postmodernism is such that it "challenges everything"(209).

There is contradiction in postmodernism but no dialectic

because it is essential that the doubleness be

maintained(221). This essential doubleness is evinced also

in the ambivalence of postmodernism on most issues

especially concerns of innovation, self-consciousness and

power. Hutcheon prefers 'politically "unmarked" to the

term ambivalent(205). She is aware also of attempts by

critics to distinguish two kinds of postmodernism. She

chooses the one that is historically engage, problematically

referential because "I would argue that only [it]... proper1y

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defines postmodernism..."(52). Hutcheon's concept of

postmodern is so indeterminate that the "the common kind of

vagueness" she wanted to avoid remains. The only effect

that this conceptualization achieves is problematization".

Postmodernism in Hutcheon's scheme of things, is basically

a problematizing project. Though she admits that the

"indeterminate nature of historical knowledge is certainly

not a discovery of postmodernism", Hutcheon asserts that the

concentration of these problematizations in postmodern art

has become impossible to ignore(88). It is arguable whether

it is postmodernism that causes problematization of

discourses. Though Hutcheon situates the origins of

postmodernism in Europe and America of the 1960s, the

postmodern is framed by books, films and works of art and

architecture that were produced until the 1980s. Thus,

postmodernism as a problematizing project follows the deed.

It is now almost universally recognized that all cultural

practices have an ideological subtext which determine the

conditions of their production of meaning but it is

disputable whether this recognition can be labelled

'postmodern'. There is no general agreement on what

postmodernism is. Hutcheon refers to two types of

postmodernism(52). There seem to be many more. Leslie

Fiedler first coined the term 'postmodernism* in his essay

"Cross the Border - Close that Gap: Post-Modernism" to

describe a de-Eliotisation movement in art. It challenges

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the privileging of 'serious literature over popular art and

the critic as the connoisseur of literary taste.

Postmodernism may be explored from its characterization

as pop art. Pillai(1991) differentiates between the

AppolIonian and Dionysian strains' of postmodernism. Gerald

Graff(1977) identifies two strains in postmodernism: the

apocalyptic dominated by a sense of the "death of literature

and criticism" and the visionary which expresses

"hopefulness for revolutionary changes in society through

radical transformation in human consciousness"(218). While

Graff argues that postmodernism is a logical culmination"

of romantic and modernist assumptions, for Hutcheon it is

neither a simple radical break nor a continuity - "it is

both and neither"(18) . Ihab Hassan(1971) discerns two

accents of silence in postmodernist literature: the negative

echo of language which is nihilist and the positive

stillness that is sacramental and plenary. Another

appraisal of postmodernism distinguishes B-effect associated

with Baudrillard and C-effect associated with Cage(Zurbrugg

1993). The B-effect conveys a sense of doom, catastrophe and

historical indifference while the C-effect explores the

viability and value of innovations.

Historiographic Metafiction: Definition

Hutcheon explains that the term historiographic

metafiction combines argument by poetics(metafiction)

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with "argument by historicism"(historiographic) in such a

way as to mutually interrogate one another(42) .

Bradbury(1977) discerned two consequences in the tendency of

fiction to withdraw from referential composition, realism

and from schematic formal organization. One was for the

text to exist by the "rhythm of composition itself, a

concern with the lexical surface. The second is an interest

in the fictional process as a parody of forms, a game-like

construct"(15). The novel moved from its nineteenth century

conception as a realistic representation of life to concern

for the fiction-making process embedded within the novel

itself. Such metafictional texts question the conventions

of writing and reading novels; they question the assumed

connections across happenings in a text in terms of a cause

and effect reading and stereotypes of story and character

that have become entrenched as generic conventions. Such

texts also interrogate the novel's representation of

reality. Historiographic metafiction shares the

metafictional concern for the process by which meaning is

sought to be made not only in fiction but also in historical

discourse.

Historiographic metafiction participates in the

scepticism or suspicion about writing of history. The

interaction of the historiographic and metafictional brings

to the forefront a rejection of both "authentic" and

"inauthentic" representations and challenges the

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transparency of historical referentiality. By questioning

historys authority over truth historiographic metafiction

demarginalizes the literary.

a. Referentialitv of Narrative

The issues of referentiality of narrative and the

problematic relationship between narrative and

historiography that emerge out of the four texts are similar

to the concerns of what Hutcheon terms 'historiographic

metafiction. Hutcheon derives theory from phenomenon that

has already occurred. Since there cannot be duplication of

these phenomenon the frame alters with its application to

other texts. These texts use history not to portray an

external reality but to explore other "realities".

Historiographic metafiction provides an appropriate frame

for focusing on ways in which history has been used in these

novels.

Textuality of historical knowledge indicates that

interpretation is invariably linked to any narrative text

and that the knowledge of the past is always mediated.

Just as a word can be understood only in relation to other

words, so texts can be situated only with reference to other

texts. In the case of history, texts are also read in the

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context of the 'real, knowledge of which has already been

entextualized. Termed by deconstruction as 'disintegral

textual ism it renders problematic the boundaries between

the text and the context, questions the factuality of

history and raises doubts about historical methodology that

is supposedly based on evidence. An implication of the

textualizat i on of context is the combination of

interpretation and criticism. That is, intertextuality

necessarily becomes a way of 'reading' a text and reality.

"Reality in sum, is human; it is always that which we make

signify, never a mere given"(Gossman 1990 248). White has

studied the mediation of historical knowledge through the

modes of emplotment, argument and ideological implication in

historiography. Emplotment is the way a story is sequenced

which makes it a particular kind of story.

b. Challenging History

Historiographic metafiction reminds its reader that

writers work not only in historical contexts but their own

interpretative contexts too. The past did exist before its

"entextualization(Hutcheon 93). What is being called into

question is the knowledge of the past - not whether the past

did exist. The knowledge of the past is given by the

historians text which is an outcome of his or her analysis

of evidence. Historical evidence may not be continuous or

complete. Evidence that becomes fact is discourse defined.

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History is given a continuity and a completion by

historians arrangement of facts. Aware of this,

historiographic metafiction questions facticity and

historical continuities. It highlights the difference

between actual past events that have no significance by

themselves and facts that have a function and meaning in

history. By doing this historiographic metafiction does not

reconcile history and literature - it remains an unresolved

contradiction. The provisionality and uncertainty of

historical interpretation is not reconciled. It seems to

acknowledge the limits and powers of writing the past

without indicating any solutions. And because it does not

resolve contradictions Hutcheon has asserted that

historiographic metafiction is 'more "romans a hypothese"

than "romans a these"(180). Historiographic metafictions

are not unified by a single totalizing historical

philosophy. They are not "ideological novels which try to

persuade their readers to interpret the world as they do.

The metafictional aspect of historiography explores how

history is written to give reality meaning, thus focusing

attention on the process of historical interpretation.

Historiographic metafiction orders a world to fit it between

the first and last pages of a book but ironically reveals

the shaping process and its product. It not only

interrogates the traditions of literary writing, it

problematizes the ideologies and philosophies underlying

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historiography. Historiographic metafiction "situates"

itself in a discursive context refuting any claim to

universality. It questions, subverts and deconstructs what

is assumed to be a historical real. It asserts that

reference is not correspondence and approaches the past

critically not nostalgically. Questioning the referentiality

of narrative raises the problem of the valuing of

historical truth over the literary.

c. Across discourses: Intertextualitv

The textuality of knowledge reveals that the referent

of the text is other texts. Roland Barthes(1975) defined the

intertext as "the impossibility of living outside the

infinite text"(36), making i ntertextuality an inevitable

condition of textuality. Inter textuality challenges the

notions of originality and closure. The use of texts from

history and literature undercuts any pretensions to

authority or legitimacy that the former may have and refuses

to privilege one over the other.

Inter textuality in historiographic metafiction

challenges notions of originality in literature. It opens up

t,he closed textual world and changes the mimetic

relationship between the text and the objective world. By

overtly referring to other texts in literature and history

any fixed identity of the text is made untenable. It

problematizes the concept of 'real* and blurs the

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traditional boundaries set up between disciplines and

discursive practices. Historiographic metafiction

destabilizes 'received' notions of history and fiction. It

shows fiction to be historically conditioned and history to

be "discursively structured(Hutcheon 120). No text is a

world unto itself anymore. The text is produced in a

'field' of signifying practices, 'contaminated' by other

texts(191). It opens up closed systems of cultural

practice, expanding frames of reference, indicating

intersections with various forms of cultural practice.

Historiographic metafiction challenges the practice of

breaking up knowledge into various disciplinary

compartments. Discourse has been foregrounded to show that

knowledge is not an uninterested, intellectual practice, but

is political and partial(that is, incomplete and biased).

Discourse is both an instrument and effect of power.

Hutcheon uses Foucault to explain discourse as the site of

conjunction of power and know!edge(185). Historiographic

metafiction "situates" itself in a discursive context

unfolding the ways in which power equations influence the

positioning of discourse. Laying bare the conditions that

produce discourse, historiographic metafiction challenges

the legitimacy that certain interpretations have over

others. Discourse is not neutral; it is determined by those

who conduct it. By exploring the historical conditions of

its meaning, historiographic metafiction reveals the

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overlapping of power politics and discursive formation.

Consequently, in McCafferys words, "we inhabit a world of

fiction"(1982 8). The term fiction has been used to refer to

historical knowledge, questioning its claims over literature

to truth and exposing its subjective system.

In a private conversation with Dina Mehta author of And

some take a lover(1992), Mehta said, "I dont know whether I

would call IAAL a novel at all "(1994). On the other hand

Jeanette Winterson asserted: I dont call my writing

novels....In so much as the novel is a nineteenth century

idea I dont write novels (1994). None of the four text

examined here fit into conventional novelistic categories.

At the same time the idea of the novel itself has

consistently changed over the centuries making it a free

form" that has no limits except that of 1anguage(Fowles

1977). Historiographic metafiction further opens up the

category of the novel by blurring its boundaries with other

discourses.

d. Subject(s) in/of history

Historiographic metafiction according to Hutcheon shows

how the subject of history is a subject in history and at

the same time subject to history. Figuratively, it

challenges the claim of objectivity in history and shows how

memory defines and gives meaning to subjectivity. Narrative

dispersion in MC according to Hutcheon becomes the objective

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correlative of the decentring of the subject and of history.

The subversion of the stability of point of view, according

to Hutcheon is effected by overt, manipulative narrators and

myriad voices. They shift positions and reinvent

themselves, their protean identities contesting any notion

of transcendental subject. The use of autobiography by MC

and TGIN and the use of the first person singular pronoun

while announcing the subject and subjectivity thwarts

expectations of a unified point of view and a single,

coherent subject. The narration of a historical past

intertwined with the narration of the self recalls the

historical documents. It challenges the sanctity of

historical evidence and the textuality of the archive. The

analogy between history and memory questions the

transparent, coherent and integrated self. It makes any

distinction between the private 'I and the public 'I

problematic. Identity is perceived to be constituted in

language. The author is "situated" in discursive contexts

just as his writing is. Intertextuality challenges notions

of original genius and the figure of the literary artist as

a visionary who 'authorizes special and unique insights

into the nature of the world and its representation.

Hutcheon supports her thesis with references to several

texts including Marquezs One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Doctorows The Book of Daniel, and Rushdies Shame and MC.

The theoretical framework gains credibility from these

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various illustrations. No detailed study of a single text

is made; certain aspects of texts are used to demonstrate

how historiographic metafiction works. The textuality of

knowledge foregrounds the use of language. Irony and parody

are ways in which the contradictory nature of

historiographic metafiction may be presented. Figurative

language, "tropical discourse" in Whites terms, may be used

as a common thread running through a narrative to give some

semblance of coherence. Intertextuality expands the scope

of the text, connects its speaking subject to other

discourses and intersects different categories of knowledge

locating historiographic metafiction along a continuum

between reality and discourse. A text that can be called

historiographic metafiction is not only situated within an

overlap between theory and practice, the discourse in it

also evinces that same overlap. The sites of negotiation

and exchange of this overlap may be located by examining

the texts arrangement of words, organization of events, the

position of its speaking subject(s) and the types of

discourses used. The third, fourth and fifth chapters

discuss the organization of each of the four texts, the

positioning of the subject in them and the use of different

types of discourse.

Of the four texts MC has received the maximum

attention. It is not only the earliest book to be published

of the four, it is also the first of its kind. With its

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publication the peripheral character of Indian English

literature changed dramatically. The treatment of history in

MC continues to generate controversy and the complexity of

its organization makes different permutations and

combinations possible at every reading.

Each of the four texts uses history in its own way. The

analysis of the texts in terms of organizing principles,

positioning of subject and use of discourse yields varying

results. MC dominates discussions on narrative strategies;

the examination of the portrayal of historical characters

and events in TGIN is most influential in the debate on the

representation of reality in narrative; IAAL gives a number

of instances of the politics underlying historiography;

THOTW implicates cybernetics in the question of whether

technology provides more objectivity" in historical

research. The treatment of the relationship between history

and literature is different in each book.

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