Palimpsestuous Fragmentation in James Cahill’s Tiepolo Blue

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper delves into James Cahill’s debut novel, Tiepolo Blue (2022), as an updating of postmodern gay novels like Alan Hollinghurst’s Booker-Prize winner The Line of Beauty (2004). To prove the postness of Tiepolo Blue, some aspects will be addressed. First of all, the novel revises the relation between ethics and aesthetics, for Don, the protagonist, is able to overcome the aporia that blocks many of Hollinghurst’s main characters. In this sense, Kristeva’s concept of the abject is meaningful because Don shifts from the horror of encountering an “abject” piece of art to embracing the Dionysian. Likewise, the article moves from postmodernist intertextuality. For Dillon, the palimpsest is a relational event that conjures up former and new texts on a palimpsestuous surface. Pentimenti, a similar concept referring to the different layers on canvas, are also addressed as long as Tiepolo Blue is set in the world of art. In this conflict between the surface and the subterranean of palimpsests and pentimenti, the protagonist eventually chooses the underworld. This he does by rearranging his aesthetic assumptions and welcoming a fragmented version of art. In this process of middle-age awakening, he loiters London and its layers in a Felliniesque fashion.