Marion Bourdeau

​

marion.bourdeau@univ-lyon3.fr

 

HOSPITALITIES, HOSTILITIES: NARRATIVES AND REPRESENTATIONS

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

​

Grenoble Alpes University 19-20 November 2020

 

Marion BOURDEAU – Univ. Caen Normandie (ERIBIA)

Colliding hospitalities, transformative hostilities in From A Low and Quiet Sea (Donal Ryan, 2018).

 

Marion Bourdeau, agrégée in English studies, teaches at the University of Lyon 3. She completed a PhD in Irish Studies at the University of Caen Normandy under the supervision of Professor Bertrand Cardin. Her research focuses on contemporary Irish literature and stylistics, and in particular on the writing of space and ethics in Colum McCann’s fiction.

 

 

In his 2018 novel, From A Low and Quiet Sea, the Irish writer Donal Ryan focuses on the narratives of three men facing hardships and defining moments of crisis: Farouk, a Syrian man forced to abandon his home in the face of war, only to lose his family to a coffin ship on the Mediterranean before he ends up in Ireland through a humanitarian program; Lampy, a young, heartbroken Irish man trying to come to terms with the beginning of his adult life among loving but tense family relationships; finally, John, a mysterious Irishman on the brink of death, who confesses a long string of sins and dubious actions. The three narratives are isolated, but the final part of the book has them come together and sheds new light on them, partly thanks to the addition of so-far secondary characters who provide the missing pieces of the puzzle. All of them experience and practice hostility as well as hospitality, and are in turn hospitable, hosted, and hostile. In a way, the same can be said for the readers, whose inference work as well as empathy and sympathy are sometimes challenged and sometimes simplified. In terms of plot, at the level of the Text World (Werth, 1999), Ryan’s focus seems to be on the grey areas and the paradoxical nature of his characters, who are faced with existential choices and issues: depression and resilience, the clash between aspiration and reality as well as the question of filiation and transmission – and lack thereof – are among the themes and notions which create a golden thread between the three main characters/reflectors. In the Discourse World (Werth, 1999), the author seems particularly concerned with asking his readers to face these contradictions and encourage them to think about the thin line between care and violence, about the often problematic question of (religious and/or secular) ethics, while interrogating Irishness at a time when Ireland, with its age-old tradition of emigration, has become a land of immigration.

 

This presentation will thus aim to examine the extremely mobile dynamics of hostility and hospitality in this novel and their correlation with both ethical and aesthetic preoccupations. It will first present the mainly grim and hostile environment and dispositions featured in the text, which are somehow contradicted (perhaps even balanced?) by hospitable characters and initiatives. This will lead me to explore the national setting for the majority of these plotlines and to raise the question the (new?) definition of Irishness in the contemporary context of globalisation and mass mobility: how is Irishness defined and is it being challenged? If so, how and with what consequences? In the end, is national identity the problem or does the novel try to interrogate a global sense of place based on universal humanity? The tension between clashing elements, attitudes and traditions leading to a defining sense of ambivalence in the plot is mirrored in the narrative choices: the techniques used to build a text which is sometimes hostile and sometimes hospitable for its reader will be presented and analysed, especially those responsible for creating or preventing empathy. Indeed, the question of stories and storytelling is at the core of the novel and its preoccupations, both in terms of contents and form, and is closely associated with ethics and the transformative power of words. The three main characters in particular are depicted as being used to telling people tales, anecdotes, jokes, and lies too, in order to make a point, to trigger a reaction or to promote their own interests. Even though the lines can be blurred in that instance too, I will argue that it is possible to wonder whether a correlation can be established between telling stories and hostility on the one hand, and between storytelling and hospitality on the other. If such a distinction is accepted, could ethical intentions be what differentiates the two processes?

 

 

Provisional sources:

RYAN, Donal. 2018. From a Low and Quiet Sea. London: Penguin.

 

BENJAMIN, Walter. 1968. Illuminations. London: Fontana

BROWN, Terence. 1981. Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1922‐1985. London: Fontana Press.

CRONIN, Nessa (ed.). 2009. Anáil an Bhéil Bheo : Orality and Modern Irish Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

DERRIDA, Jacques. 2000. Of Hospitality (transl. Rachel Bowlby). Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

GALLESE, Vittorio. 2001. "The ‘Shared Manifold’ Hypothesis. From Mirror Neurons To Empathy". Journal of Consciousness Studies vol. 8, N°5-7 : 33–50. URL : https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2b11/cbfdf73a3bb5b9fdf588365aafb2a4b4c875.pdf

GENETTE, Gérard. 1972. Figures III, Paris: Le Seuil.

 KIBERD, Declan. 1995. Inventing Ireland – The Literature of the Modern Nation. Cambridge (Mass): Harvard University Press.

---. 2005. The Irish Writer and the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

KUNO, Susumu, & Etsuko KABURAKI. 1977. "Empathy and Syntax". Linguistic Inquiry vol. 8, n°4 (autumn 1977): 625-672.

LAUGIER, Sandra. 2010. « L'éthique du care en trois subversions ». Multitudes vol. 42, n°3: 112-125.

LEECH, Geoffrey, & Mick SHORT. 2007 (1st published 1981). Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose. Harlow, New York: Pearson Longman.

LLOYD, David. 2016 (1st published 2011). Irish Culture and Colonial Modernity, 1800-2000: The Transformation of Oral Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McCANN, Colum. 2019. "Colum McCann on Stories and Storytelling". California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)’s YouTube Channel.

RICŒUR, Paul. 1984. « Fondements de l'éthique ». Autres Temps. Les cahiers du christianisme social n°3 : 61-71.

---. 1999. Soi-même comme un autre. Paris: Le Seuil.

WERTH, Paul. 1999. Text worlds: representing conceptual space in discourse. London: Longman.