A Train to Castle Von Aux Patrick deWitt’s Fiction and the Transnational Paradigm

While deWitt’s writing enjoys commercial and critical success, it has inspired very little academic scrutiny. This is perhaps due to deWitt’s avoidance of Canadian settings and themes in favor of motifs from American popular culture or European folktales. Just as The Sisters Brothers (2011) relied o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inHungarian journal of English and American studies Vol. 25; no. 2; pp. 253 - 266
Main Author Majer, Krzysztof
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Debrecen Centre for Arts, Humanities and Sciences, University of Debrecen 01.10.2019
De Gruyter Poland
Subjects
Absurdism
Aesthetics
Allusion
Authorship
Bildungsroman
Canadian literature
Contemporary literature
Culture
deWitt, Patrick (1975- )
Epic literature
Fiction
Folklore
Free trade
Genre
Globalization
Gothic fiction
Jewish literature
Journals (Academic)
Literary characters
Literary criticism
Literary devices
Literary influences
Literary translation
Literature
Misogyny
Motion pictures
Multiculturalism & pluralism
Narrative techniques
Novels
Plot (Narrative)
Publishing
Publishing industry
Richler, Mordecai (1931-2001)
Short stories
Transnationalism
Writers
Writing
Canada
United States > US
North America
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Summary:While deWitt’s writing enjoys commercial and critical success, it has inspired very little academic scrutiny. This is perhaps due to deWitt’s avoidance of Canadian settings and themes in favor of motifs from American popular culture or European folktales. Just as The Sisters Brothers (2011) relied on deWitt’s ironic use of the Western formula, so Undermajordomo Minor (2015) constitutes a playful attempt at rejuvenating several tired genres. In the story of young Lucy Minor’s acquisition of a dubious post at the eerie Castle Von Aux there are unmistakable elements of the Gothic romance, the fable, and the Bildungsroman, all spiced up with a quirky cinematic aesthetic. Equally strong are the echoes of Walser’s Jakob von Gunten, Kafka’s The Castle, and Bernhard’s Gargoyles, themselves richly interconnected. Through these diverse allusions and a curious blurring of geographical and historical boundaries, deWitt creates transgeneric fiction, which may be understood as transnational in the sense assumed by Kit Dobson or Peter Morgan.
ISSN:1218-7364