Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Jackson, Earl

Titel

Reading the Writing 'I': Intertextual Subjectivity and Textual Intersubjectivity in Laura Moriarty's Ultravioleta

Ist Teil von

• Journal of narrative theory, 2021-01, Vol.51 (3), p.355-386

Ort / Verlag

Ypsilanti: Eastern Michigan University

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Quelle

Literature Online (LION)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• [...]the science fictional premise of Ultravioleta suggests an at least rough parallel to Dodie Bellamy's adoption of the gothic aesthetic and vampire tale in The Letters of Mina Harker. Below is a list of the main personae and their "species": Stella: a human and writer, flying her own (metal) ship, the Nautilus; Ada: a clone, and the powerful director of the Gutenberg Library Hotel on Europa, a moon of Jupiter, and the limit of navigable space; Cap: a robot; Eddie: a Martian human who operates continual radio broadcasts from a café on Mars and writes under the pen name, Stendhal; Pontius Pilate: an I who contains the consciousness of the notorious Roman governor of Judaea and who will eventually pilot the paper ship, the Ultravioleta; Wyatt: an I who contains the consciousness of both the Elizabethan poet Thomas Wyatt and the gambler and sometime deputy marshal of Tombstone, Arizona, Wyatt Earp; Marty: an I who designed and navigates Ultravioleta and contains the consciousness of the Tonalist painter Xavier Martinez; M.: a female I, also a Mary (a pilot); Tinia So-Called: a space-traveling Martian and researcher; Najid Jones: a human poet; Dayv: A human-I hybrid, the offspring of Ada and Wyatt (although Ada only learns this late in the novel); Robinson: a human involved with "M"; the human passengers of the Ultravioleta are also referred to as "Robinsons" and at times their consciousnesses merge into a single "Robinson." [...]the acts of reading and writing are integral to these networks in this I-inflected extension of consciousnesses. How far can I go?" (15-16) Partially because of the way the I can insinuate themselves within a human consciousness and partially because of the communication-saturated universe the characters live in, individual psychological states are often rendered as technologized modes of either awareness or presence.