The Rights of Desire

Barnett, Ursula A.; Brink, André

doi:10.2307/40156761

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…The number of authors and novels that might be considered in a discussion of ageing is too extensive to be addressed in a single study. For instance, just limiting ourselves to the English language, Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending (2011), Andrè Brink's The Rights of Desire (2000) and Before I Forget (2004) and John Updike's Seek my Face (2002), all fall within the parameters of du Toit's research. Extending the time frame slightly, novels published after 2011 such as Bernardine Evaristo's Mr Loverman (2013) could be included, as well as texts published in the late 1990s such as John Updike's Toward the End of Time (1997), Doris Lessing's Love , Again (1997), and Jackie Kay's Trumpet (1998), not to mention Alice Munro's short story entitled ‘The Bear Came Over the Mountain’ (1999).…”

Section: Dialogism Ageing and Global Anxietiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel for an ageing population? Masculinity and demographic shift in David Lodge's Deaf Sentence (2008)

Rossoni

2023

Literature Compass

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This article examines David Lodge's novel Deaf Sentence (2008), which focuses on the life of Desmond, a retired professor of linguistics. I argue that this text offers a standpoint through which readers can visualise the global phenomenon of population ageing and address the question of global responsibility. I look at Deaf Sentence within the tradition of the Bakhtinian polyphonic novel and through the lens of the campus novel that Lodge discusses in his critical writing. The analysis of dialogism and self‐reflexivity illuminates the reverberations of global ageing on the life of Desmond, situating questions of wellbeing and demography within a narrative perspective. Detailing their struggles with isolation, incontinence and erectile dysfunction, the narration of Desmond and his father growing older sheds light on the limitations of biomedical scripts for older men based on bodily control and sexual performativity. Considering the tension of biomedical discourses and gender expectations informing the cultural construction of ageing in the global North, I contend that Lodge's writing exposes the limits of the neoliberal ideals of self‐sufficiency and individual responsibility at the heart of the notion of successful ageing. Echoing Desmond's self‐reflection, Deaf Sentence offers its reader a standpoint through which to reflect on his problematic participation in the neoliberal, patriarchal regimes that marginalise him. Interpreting the novel as a space for deconstructing the ideal of an autonomous and independent subject postulated by neoliberal discourses, I read Deaf Sentence as an invitation to its readers to embrace their own vulnerability, fostering ethics of care towards themselves and the other.

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Section: Dialogism Ageing and Global Anxietiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel for an ageing population? Masculinity and demographic shift in David Lodge's Deaf Sentence (2008)

Rossoni

2023

Literature Compass

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Redefining the enemy

Davies¹

2001

The Lancet

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Magical Realism: A Narrative of Celebration or Disillusionment? South African Literature in the Transition Period

Grzęda¹

2013

ari

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This article discusses the emergence of magical realism as a narrative form embraced by a number of South African writers in the transition period and increasingly attuned to South African writing sensibility during this time. I argue that South African magical realism goes beyond the joining of realist and postmodern narrative strands by reconciling realism’s faithfulness to the socio-political context and postmodernism’s devotion to formal experimentation, syncretism, and meta-fiction. Magical realism simultaneously relies heavily on African oral traditions, and in doing so, it not only constitutes a point of confluence for black and white writing of the apartheid era, but it also epitomises the reconciliation of Eurocentric Western rationalism and African tradition. While discussing magic realism in relation to the post-apartheid novels of André Brink and Zakes Mda, this article points towards the possible origins of the proliferation of South African texts embracing this narrative mode in the period directly following the demise of apartheid, as well as the possible reasons behind the gradual abandonment of magical realist narrative strategy in post-millennial South African fiction. Thus, South African magical realist texts will be positioned at the intersection between literature of celebration and literature of disillusionment, emerging out of the short-lived coexistence of the two literary trends in South African literary history.

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The Rights of Desire

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

A novel for an ageing population? Masculinity and demographic shift in David Lodge's Deaf Sentence (2008)

A novel for an ageing population? Masculinity and demographic shift in David Lodge's Deaf Sentence (2008)

Redefining the enemy

Magical Realism: A Narrative of Celebration or Disillusionment? South African Literature in the Transition Period

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