Losing the Power to Say “I”: Problems of Perspective in the Fiction of Daniel Davis Wood

Abstract

ABSTRACTAcross the four novels Daniel Davis Wood has published to date, it is possible to delineate an evolving ethics of literary voice. His initial step in Blood and Bone is to subvert the third-person omniscient voice by drastically expanding the imaginative abilities of the first-person narrator, thus showing how the narrator must always speak through a subjective position. The second step involves examining the extent to which the narrator’s desire is not their own: the narrator of Unspeakable is portrayed as the victim of toxic narcissism and media manipulation, for instance, while the protagonist of At the Edge of the Solid World is so alienated from his own emotions that he relives the calamities of others to process his own tragedy. Despite possessing the quasi-omniscient powers of Blood and Bone, these two narrators, far from being godlike, are shown to be puppets of desires that are not their own. The outcome is the dissolution of the subjective “I” in In Ruins, in which the narrator comes to understand the Otherness that permeates human subjectivity. Moral failures are dissolved by the inability to say “I”, making the new ethical task bearing witness to the desire of the Other.KEYWORDS: Daniel Davis Woodcontemporary Australian literatureperspectivesubjectivityethics Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Maurice Blanchot, The Space of Literature, trans. Ann Smock (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 25–26.2 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage, 1989), 119.3 Julian Novitz, “Irreconcilable Losses,” Sydney Review of Books, 30 September 2021, https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/irreconcilable-losses/.4 Daniel Davis Wood, Blood and Bone (Sydney: Xoum, 2014), 9.5 This family connection appears to be a clever fictional conceit. Certainly no statue of Rowan Scrymgeour stands in the Queensland town of Jericho.6 Davis Wood, Blood and Bone, 199.7 Daniel Davis Wood, “Notes on Narrative Voice,” For Argument's Sake: Essays on Literature (New York: Createspace, 2013), 258.8 Davis Wood, “Notes on Narrative Voice,” 259.9 Daniel Davis Wood, “Research Notes: Blood and Bone,” Necessary Fiction, 22 August 2014, http://necessaryfiction.com/blog/ResearchNotesBloodandBone.10 Davis Wood, “Research Notes”.11 Davis Wood, Blood and Bone, 3–4.12 Davis Wood, Blood and Bone, 3.13 Davis Wood, Blood and Bone, 4.14 Davis Wood, Blood and Bone, 194.15 Davis Wood, Blood and Bone, 195–96.16 Davis Wood, “Research Notes”.17 Daniel Davis Wood, Unspeakable (Birmingham: Splice, 2020), 15–16.18 Davis Wood, Unspeakable, 6.19 Davis Wood, Unspeakable, 7.20 Davis Wood, Unspeakable, 10.21 Davis Wood, Unspeakable, 9.22 Davis Wood, Unspeakable, 33.23 Davis Wood, Unspeakable, 43.24 Davis Wood, Unspeakable, 49.25 Davis Wood, Unspeakable, 51.26 Davis Wood, Unspeakable, 49.27 Davis Wood, Unspeakable, 11.28 Davis Wood, Unspeakable, 55.29 Daniel Davis Wood, At the Edge of the Solid World (Sydney: Brio, 2020), 249.30 Daniel Davis Wood, “What I’m Reading,” Meanjin, 23 September 2020, https://meanjin.com.au/blog-what-im-reading/daniel-davis-wood/.31 Daniel Davis Wood, “Own the Filth: Writing into the Ethical Compromises of Fiction,” Areo, 4 September 2020, http://areomagazine.com/2020/09/04/own-the-filth-writing-into-the-ethical-compromises-of-fiction/.32 Davis Wood, “Own the Filth”.33 Davis Wood, “Own the Filth”.34 Davis Wood, “Own the Filth”.35 Giorgio Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (New York: Zone, 1999), 105–6.36 Splice / Small Press, “AT THE EDGE OF THE SOLID WORLD – Daniel Davis Wood in Conversation with Anna MacDonald,” YouTube video, 1:00:10, 6 January 2021, http://youtu.be/ousOCyHCj0w.37 Splice, “AT THE EDGE OF THE SOLID WORLD”.38 Splice, “AT THE EDGE OF THE SOLID WORLD”.39 Davis Wood, At the Edge of the Solid World, 168.40 Novitz, “Irreconcilable Losses”.41 Davis Wood, At the Edge of the Solid World, 360.42 Davis Wood, At the Edge of the Solid World, 363.43 Daniel Davis Wood, In Ruins (Birmingham: Splice, 2021), 88.44 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 17–18.45 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 79.46 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 93.47 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 79.48 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 111.49 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 64.50 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 64.51 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 64.52 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 47.53 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 63.54 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 62.55 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 64.56 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 116.57 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 122.58 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 22.59 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 23.60 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 25.61 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 26.62 Davis Wood, In Ruins.63 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Ernest C. Mossner (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985), 300.64 Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 300.65 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 51.66 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 52.67 Davis Wood, In Ruins.68 Roberto Esposito, Third Person: Politics of Life and Philosophy of the Impersonal, trans. Zakiya Hanafi (Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2012), 143.69 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 68.70 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 99–100.71 Roland Barthes, Image-Music-Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill & Wang, 1978), 142.72 Davis Wood, In Ruins, 52.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) project “Time and Contemporary Literature” [202200000002632].