The Recuperation of History in British and Irish Fiction

Scanlan, Margaret

doi:10.1002/9780470757611.ch10

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…In this sense, Cone's narrative may be said to participate of the representational dilemmas surrounding a historical novel that is more obsessed with the rescue of our past than ever. War on the Margins unveils the imprecise borders between "documented public history and the literary", a trait that characterizes many current historical fictions [52] (p. 144). In fact, as has been pointed out, this novel goes beyond the Postmodernist tenets that history and fiction are both discourses.…”

Section: Liminal Genresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some critics, like Scanland, have argued that several Second World War novels written by contemporary female authors highlight "that what matters most in history is often experienced on its margins" [52] (p. 144). These words support the idea that Cone's focus on marginality and liminality is not an isolated phenomenon but a common feature in contemporary historical fiction written by women.…”

Section: Women At War: Healing and Resistant Bondsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Liminal and Transmodern Female Voices at War: Resistant and Healing Female Bonds in Libby Cone’s War on the Margins (2008)

Pellicer‐Ortín

2018

Societies

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When addressing marginal experiences during the Second World War, the German occupation of the Channel Islands deserves pride of place, as very few writers have represented that liminal side of the conflict. One of these few writers is Libby Cone, who published War on the Margins in 2008, a historical novel set on Jersey during this occupation and whose main protagonist encounters various female characters resisting the occupation from a variety of marginal positions. Drawing from Rodríguez Magda’s distinction between “narratives of celebration” and “narratives of the limit”, the main claim behind this article is that liminality is a general recourse in transmodern fiction, but in Cone’s War on the Margins it also acts as a fruitful strategy to represent female bonds as promoters of empathy, resilience and resistance. First, this study will demonstrate how liminality works at a variety of levels and it will identify some of the specific features characterizing transmodern war narratives. Then, the female bonds represented will be examined to prove that War on the Margins relies on female solidarity when it comes to finding resilient attitudes to confront war. Finally, this article will elaborate on how Cone uses these liminal features to voice the difficult experiences that Jewish and non-Jewish women endured during the Second World War, echoing similar conflictive situations of other women in our transmodern era.

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Section: Liminal Genresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Women At War: Healing and Resistant Bondsmentioning

confidence: 99%