Abstract
This article attempts to formulate a new theoretical framework for literary realism, discussing in particular Joseph Vogl’s notion of ‘oikodicy’ and the second novel by Canadian-Indian writer Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance (1995). My argument is that literary realism — through its form (one that asserts consensus, a common perspective, an ‘un-transcendable’ common horizon) — addresses the political problem of the state of nature, where everyone in principle has absolute rights, i.e. the right to construct and devise the public-collective world according to his or her own private-individual desire and will. Through a reading of the funeral scene of Shankar in A Fine Balance, I argue that literary realism provides an alternative to both Hobbes’ authoritarian solution and Bakhtin’s carnivalesque, one that insists on the realness of that which is eliminated or marginalised within the sovereign’s reality. The problem of sovereignty re-emerges in Vogl’s concept of the oikodicy, albeit with the crucial difference that instead of the authoritarian sovereign, Vogl’s sovereign is that of finance capital itself; an impersonal, anonymous force, albeit no less frightening in terms of strength. Mistry’s realism offers an important response to this problematic in today’s global world
Highlights
This article attempts to formulate a new theoretical framework for literary realism, discussing in particular Joseph Vogl’s notion of ‘oikodicy’ and the second novel by Canadian-Indian writer Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance (1995)
My argument is that literary realism — through its form — addresses the political problem of the state of nature, where everyone in principle has absolute rights, i.e. the right to construct and devise the public-collective world according to his or her own private-individual desire and will
When Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy on 15 September 2008, it heralded the largest financial crisis since the great Depression of the 1930s.1A few days later, on 24 September, President George Bush felt compelled to address the nation live on television, urging Congress to pass a bill that would nationalise billions of dollars of debt in an effort to save collapsing banks
Summary
Such surreal narratives were accompanied by an desperate, confused and hysterical blame game. — after George Bush had successfully convinced the Congress about the urgency of the situation — the US state immediately took over 700 Billion US Dollars of debt from the banks, a bill which was passed on to the people in the form of draconian budget cuts on public spending. It worked; already the year after, in 2009, Wall Street reported one of its best years ever: investment managers on average earned more than before 2008, and the number of millionaires grew in step with an alarming amount of people dropping below the poverty line.. It worked; already the year after, in 2009, Wall Street reported one of its best years ever: investment managers on average earned more than before 2008, and the number of millionaires grew in step with an alarming amount of people dropping below the poverty line. After the apocalyptic mass hysteria of September 2008, everything went back to normal in a surprisingly short time, as if nothing had happened at all.
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