Naming the Bones: Bodies of Knowledge in Contemporary Fiction

Abstract

Does fiction function as archive or as repertoire? Diana Taylor's distinction between these two modes of memory fails to fully explore fictional attempts to capture a repertoire of performance within the archival page, while Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, Janet Frame's The Carpathians, and Jose Saramago's All the Names posit the novel as a site where repertoires of embodied knowledge can be captured within the literary archive, producing memory as a powerful presence by interring its mediated images within the silent page. A comparison of these novels suggests the richly paradoxical relationships among fiction, cultural performance, and memory.