The papers of the conference were published by Editions Publibook
Université.
(Re-)Mapping London. Visions of the Metropolis
in the Contemporary Novel in English. Ed. Vanessa Guignery. Paris
: Éditions Publibook Université, 2008. 252p.
Order online (30 euros): http://www.publibook.com/
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction : London observed, by Vanessa Guignery (Paris IV Sorbonne,
France)
British Londoners
Madness in the City : Crazy Flâneurs in the writings of Jenny
Diski, Tibor Fischer, and Jane Rogers, by Gerd Bayer (Erlangen, Germany)
Mr Dalloway (Robin Lippincott) and Saturday (Ian McEwan)
: Virginia Woolf's legacy of London, by Monica Girard (Nancy II, France)
A medley of images : (re)presentation of the city in Doris Lessing's
London Observed and V.S. Pritchett's London Perceived,
by Paulina Kupisz (Warsaw, Poland)
Will Self's Dorian : "in the stinky inky heart of tentacular
London", by Marie-Noëlle Zeender (Nice Sophia-Antipolis,
France)
Graham Swift
From Bermondsey to Brick Lane : the variegated Londons of Graham Swift
and Monica Ali, by Catherine Pesso-Miquel (Lyon II, France)
Shop Owning and Memory Honing in Graham Swift's Fictions of South
London : The Sweet Shop Owner; Last Orders and The
Light of Day, by Georges Letissier (Nantes, France)
Revisiting London's monuments : sidelining Graham Swift, Ian McEwan,
Martin Amis, by Claire Larsonneur (Paris VIII, France)
The Light of Day : a day in Graham Swift's London, by Béatrice
Berna (Paris IV Sorbonne, France)
A Conversation with Graham Swift
New Londoners
Urban Palimpsests and (Dis-) Enchanted Flâneurs. Representations
of London in Salman Rushdie's novels, by Daniela Rogobete (Craiova,
Romania)
London at the Millennium: Imaginary Constructions of the City in Zadie
Smith's White Teeth and Diran Adebayo's My Once Upon a Time,
by Dagmar Dreyer (Göttingen, Germany)
"Just keep on walking in a straight line": allowing for
chance in Zadie Smith's overdetermined London (White Teeth,
The Autograph Man and On Beauty), by Laurent Mellet
(Bourgogne, France)
Beyond Postcolonial Culture ? Brit-lit and the inner/outer London
city novels of Courttia Newland, by Anne Fuchs (Nice Sophia-Antipolis,
France)
Longing for landscape : new Londoners' sense of belonging and the
representation of the city, by Flaminia Nicora (Bergamo, Italy)
Foreign Home : Caryl Phillips's The Final Passage, by Josiane
Ranguin (Paris IV Sorbonne, France)
Abstracts
*
This conference was organised by ERCLA research centre with the support of
the British Council, the Scientific Committee and Doctoral School
IV of Paris IV-Sorbonne.
The aim of this conference was to deal with the representations and
writings of London in the contemporary novel in English - putting
forward possible connections with pictorial representations such as
paintings or films. The corpus which was considered consisted of contemporary
novels published in Great-Britain and ex-Commonwealth countries ("New
literatures") from 1950 onwards.
Two major issues were considered: on the one hand, the British capital
as viewed by British people being of London origin and on the other
hand, the new multicultural London as perceived by exiled writers
or those having emigrated in Great-Britain (Indians, Caribbeans, Pakistanese…),
or British citizens stemming from a more or less recent immigration
(first or second generation) from former British colonies and protectorates.
We approached representations of London from a historical, vertical
perspective as well as a geographical, horizontal one.
Latest critical writings dedicated to this issue are of great quality
- see more specifically Patrick Wright's A Journey Through Ruins:
The Last Days of London (1991), the essays on contemporary literature
in London in Literature: Visionary Mappings of the Metropolis
(2002) directed by Susana Onega and John A. Stotesbury; see also Postcolonial
London: Rewriting the Metropolis (2004) by John McLeod as well
as The Swarming Streets. Twentieth-century Literary Representations
of London (2004) directed by Lawrence Phillips. Yet, they rarely
link the two perspectives depicted above, which our conference offered
to combine.
From the perspective of a multicultural writing, we wondered about
the relevance of John McLeod's concept of a postcolonial London where
a dynamic multiculturalism is coming up with lasting racial prejudices
as well as arising religious fundamentalisms (see Salman Rushdie's
The Satanic Verses (1988), Hanif Kureishi's The Black Album
(1995) and My Son the Fanatic (1998)). Drawing from precise
literary examples (for instance White Teeth (2000) by Zadie
Smith or Brick Lane (2003) by Monica Ali)), we studied the
modes of a "vernacular cosmopolitanism" (McLeod) marked
by the creation of new forms of expression by Londoners of various
backgrounds, as well as the challenging of the concept of identity.
It was also possible to analyse how London is seen by Caribbean expatriates
such as Sam Selvon, Andrew Salkey, V.S. Naipaul, Joan Riley, Caryl
Philips in The Final Passage (1985) or Andrea Levy in Small
Island (2004).
From a more specifically national angle, we focused on novels by
British writers such as Graham Swift - who was our guest-speaker and
will talk about The Light of Day (2003). One also thinks of
Peter Ackroyd who always makes crucial room for London in his novels,
for instance in Hawksmoor (1985) and English Music (1992),
culminating with his masterpiece London: The Biography (2000),
which mixes together geography, history, tradition, culture, search
for Englishness and nostalgia in the way it depicts the capital. We
also referred to Iain Sinclair's works, more particularly London
Orbital (2002) along with its controversy - relayed by The
Guardian - about London, the Biography, as well as novels
by Martin Amis (see his dystopic and allegorical detective novel London
Fields (1989) and its dark millenarianism), and Julian Barnes
(see Metroland (1980) and its adolescent and rebellious view
of an off London district, which can be opposed to a more political
and sarcastic vision in Letters from London, 1995). Besides,
the study of more recent works was also considered - such as Ian McEwan's
Saturday (2005), which focuses on one single day in London
or Will Self's The Book of Dave (2006) in which a London taxi
driver represents London's memory.
In order to outline the period taken into consideration, we drew
from many early 20th century books dedicated to the London of writers
(Ford Madox Ford: The Soul of London, 1905), when some of them
envisaged the capital as both "20th century Babylonia" and
the heart of the Empire, up to Virginia Woolf's Bloomsbury in Mrs
Dalloway, before reaching the outskirts in Zadie Smith's Northern
London, Rushdie's Brickhall in The Satanic Verses or Monica
Ali's Brick Lane.
*
Friday 16 March 2007
9h15-12h30
Chair : Vanessa Guignery (Paris IV)
9h15 Welcome
9h45 François Gallix and Vanessa Guignery (Paris IV):
Introduction
10h00 Monica Girard (Nancy II): "Mr Dalloway (Robin
Lippincott) and Saturday (Ian McEwan): Virginia Woolf's legacy
of London"
10h30 María Jesús Perea Villena (Granada, Spain):
"Spatial-temporal parameters reconsidered in the Postmodernist
representations of literary London in Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton
(1987)"
11h00 Coffee break at the Club des Enseignants
11h45 Paulina Kupisz (Warsaw, Poland): "A medley of images:
(re)presentation of the city in Doris Lessing's London Observed
and V.S. Pritchett's London Perceived"
12h30-14h Lunch at the Club des enseignants
14h00-17h00
Chair : Catherine Pesso-Miquel (Lyon II)
14h Gerd Bayer (Erlangen, Germany) : "Madness in the
City: Crazy Flâneurs in the writings of Jenny Diski, Tibor Fischer,
and Jane Rogers."
14h30 Daniela Rogobete (Craiova, Romania) : "Urban Palimpsests
and (Dis-) Enchanted Flâneurs. Representations of London in
Salman Rushdie's novels"
15h00 Anne Fuchs (Nice Sophia-Antipolis) : "Beyond Postcolonial
Culture ? Brit-lit and the inner/outer London city novels of Courttia
Newland"
15h30 Coffee break at the Club des Enseignants
16h00 Laurent Mellet (Paris III): " 'Just keep on walking
in a straight line': allowing for chance in Zadie Smith's overdetermined
London (White Teeth, The Autograph Man and On Beauty)"
16h30 Dagmar Dreyer (Göttingen, Germany): "London
at the Millennium: Imaginary Constructions of the City in Zadie Smith's
White Teeth (2000) and Diran Adebayo's My Once Upon a Time
(2000)"
Saturday 17 March 2007
9h30-12h00
Chair : Gerd Bayer (Erlangen, Germany)
9h30 Yoko Fujimoto (Waseda, Japan) : "London Looming:
Postcolonial Writers and Ghosts of Colonial Education"
10h Flaminia Nicora (Bergamo, Italy) : "Longing for landscape:
new Londoners' sense of belonging and the representation of the city"
10h30 Break
11h Josiane Ranguin (Paris IV) : " Foreign Home: Caryl
Phillips's The Final Passsage"
11h30 Marie-Noelle Zeender (Nice Sophia-Antipolis) : "Will
Self's Dorian: 'in the stinky inky heart of tentacular London'
"
12h-14h30: Lunch at the Port-Salut, 163 bis rue Saint Jacques,
75005 Paris.
14h30-18h00
Chair : François Gallix (Paris IV)
14h30 Catherine Pesso-Miquel (Lyon II): "From Bermondsey
to Brick Lane: the variegated Londons of Graham Swift and Monica Ali"
15h00 Claire Larsonneur (Paris VIII): "Revisiting London's
monuments: sidelining Graham Swift, Ian McEwan, Martin Amis"
15h30 Béatrice Berna (Paris V): "The Light
of Day: one day in Graham Swift's London"
16h Georges Letissier (Nantes): "Shop owning and memory
honing in Swift's fictions of South London : The Sweet Shop Owner;
Last Orders and The Light of Day"
16h30 break
17h00 Reading and discussion with Graham SWIFT
18h30 Cocktail at the Club des enseignants
