After Jacqueline Rose, What Is Left? The Play of Identity and Representation in Russell Hoban’s Turtle Diary

Abstract

The paper addresses a problem many readers have with Jacqueline Rose’s The Case of Peter Pan, or The Impossibility of Children’s Fiction: that, while Rose does not mean writing for children should stop, she leaves little indication as to how it and the work around it might actually proceed. Russell Hoban’s adult novel Turtle Diary is read as a response to Rose. Through its children’s author protagonist, Hoban demonstrates that, while impossibility is intrinsic to relations with the Other, its privileging as a critical concern impairs a capacity to respond to the Other as a subject of empathy and ethics.